CESSMIR member Hilde Depauw defended her PhD on 10 September! Persistent disparities in mental health outcomes for ethnic minority clients underscore the necessity for empirical research on effective cultural conversations in psychotherapy. This dissertation examines broaching in psychotherapy – the deliberate addressing of clients’ cultural identities by therapists – through a intersectional lens incorporating both client and therapist perspectives via quantitative and qualitative analyses. The empirical investigations advance the measurement, understanding of process-level effects and implementation of effective broaching practices through three main contributions. First, the development and validation of a client-rated measure of therapists’ broaching behaviours. Second, the substantiation of intersectionality as an essential lens to have meaningful cultural conversations in therapy. Third, the exploration of the interplay between broaching as a micro-level therapeutic interaction and macro-level systemic factors. For practice, the most important contribution shows the mismatch in what clients versus therapists perceive as most optimal way of integrating cultural identities in therapy. Therapists often avoid broaching with the intent of providing optimal care, yet this very avoidance undermines therapeutic outcomes for ethnic minority group member clients. Ultimately, this dissertation establishes broaching as a valuable framework that aims to bridge theoretical understandings and clinical practice, thereby offering a promising pathway towards fostering more equitable, culturally responsive mental healthcare for ethnic minority group member clients by adopting practices that reduce mental health inequities over those that may exacerbate them. Want to know more? Contact hilde.depauw@ugent.be
Broaching cultural identities in psychotherapy
