Culturally Sensitive Care: Addressing Microaggressions, Dehumanization, and Cultural Concealment in Psychotherapy

Throughout the past decade, discrimination and microaggressions have been shown to be detrimental to the psychotherapeutic working alliance and treatment outcomes (e.g., Owen et al., 2018; Trusty et al., 2021). Microaggressions are subtle discriminatory statements or acts directed towards another person with whom holds a different cultural identification (Miles et al., 2021). Though microaggressions in therapy have been studied, there are gaps in connecting them to other culturally sensitive topics such as cultural concealment. Defined as withholding cultural information unique to one's own identity (Drinane et al., 2018, 2021), cultural concealment can lead to suboptimal therapy outcomes and cultural repression (Drinane et al., 2018). Moreover, the concept of dehumanization has been linked to decreased compassion and increased xenophobia and racism (Varvin, 2017), however, not much is known about the connection between this concept and its impact on therapy outcomes. The current study will examine whether psychotherapy trainees can identify microaggressions and cultural concealment in a vignette therapy session and whether those trainees perceive themselves and their clients as human. Participants (N=48) watched a 10-minute scripted therapy vignette with a Muslim client and religious microaggressions. Participants will identify microaggressions, rate the vignette client's level of cultural concealment, and rate themselves and their own clients on four dehumanization subscales. Initial analyses will be assessed with Pearson’s correlations. Further analyses will include running a MANOVA to see if the number of microaggressions identified along with the rating of cultural concealment will predict whether participants view themselves and their clients as human.

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Work Title Culturally Sensitive Care: Addressing Microaggressions, Dehumanization, and Cultural Concealment in Psychotherapy
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Penn State
Creators
  1. Kelsey Hazel Klinger
  2. Stephanie Winkeljohn Black
  3. Joanna Drinane
License In Copyright (Rights Reserved)
Work Type Poster
Publication Date 2023
DOI doi:10.26207/5jp0-kp72
Deposited May 23, 2023

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