From Knowing to Doing: Guidelines for Socioculturally Attuned Family Therapy

• Published in: Journal of marital and family therapy Vol. 45; no. 1; pp. 47 - 60
• Main Authors: Knudson‐Martin, Carmen, McDowell, Teresa, Bermudez, J. Maria
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Blackwell Publishing Ltd 01.01.2019
• Subjects: Adolescent; Adult; Child; Counselor Training; Culturally Competent Care - methods; Culturally Competent Care - standards; Culture; Emotional Development; Error Correction; Fairness; Family counseling; Family therapists; Family therapy; Family Therapy - methods; Family Therapy - standards; Female; Gender; Guidelines; Humans; Intersectionality; Learning Processes; Male; Multiculturalism & pluralism; Power; Practice Guidelines as Topic - standards; Resistance (Psychology); Social Change; Social Class; Social justice; Sociocultural factors; Systems Analysis; Task analysis; Teaching Methods; Therapists; Therapy; Transformation; New York; United States > US
• ISSN: 0194-472X; 1752-0606
• DOI: 10.1111/jmft.12299

Family therapists know that clinical concerns are not separate from larger sociopolitical contexts. Attunement to clients’ sociocultural experience is foundational to good practice, yet few guidelines integrate attention to the larger societal processes or address social equity. The purpose of this article is to help therapists move from knowing about sociocontextual issues to doing socioculturally attuned practice. We offer an overarching framework that returns to Bateson and the roots of family therapy through a call for third order transformation. The approach is responsive to societal context and an analysis of power while working through enduring concepts of major family therapy models. Transtheoretical guidelines that can be integrated across practice models to promote third order change are illustrated with case examples.