Family Therapy as a Complex Cultural and Sociopolitical Encounter

Program Description:

From its inception, family therapy endeavored to understand and incorporate the impact of the social context in individual and family life. Today, the need to address the cultural and sociopolitical issues affecting families and society has become a critical aspect of the training and practice of family therapy.

This lecture will present an ecological and postmodern framework that facilitates the systematic and yet non-stereotyped incorporation of cultural diversity and socially and racially just therapeutic practices. While this strength-based framework addresses the needs of under-resourced and underserved families, it also encompasses comparative work with mainstream families. Issues of intersectionality, cultural humility, and awareness of power differentials in the therapeutic relationship are discussed to increase practitioners’ self-awareness of the role that their sociocultural and racial assumptions and preferences play in the therapeutic encounter.

Presenter:

Celia Jaes Falicov, PhD is a renowned family therapy author and teacher, respected for her expertise on cultural diversity and her commitment to social and racial equity. She is the Director of Mental Health Services of the Student Run Free Clinics Project, Department of Family Medicine, University of California, San Diego where she developed a program of volunteer professionals in response to the needs of under resourced immigrants. She also designed “fireside chats” to sensitize medical students to cultural and social context. A past president of AFTA (American Family Therapy Academy), she pioneered writings for family therapy theory, practice and training on transitions, migration, culture, social and racial context, receiving awards for these contributions. Her books include Cultural Perspectives in Family Therapy; Family Transitions: Continuity and Change over the Life Cycle, and the widely praised Latino Families in Therapy (2nd Edition, 2014). She has co-authored the 2014 APA book Multiculturalism and Diversity in Clinical Supervision: A Competency-Based Approach. Dr Falicov provides individual supervision and organizational programmatic consultation on socioculturally responsive practices.

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