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Culturally responsive and racially conscious psychotherapeutic work requires that therapists recognize the ways clients are impacted by their multiple marginalized identities and by systems of oppression (e.g., racism, ethnocentrism, sexism, heterosexism, and nativism). Attending exclusively to clients' marginalized identities (i.e., weak intersectionality) may drive therapists to only focus on internal, subjective, and emotional experiences, hence, missing the opportunity to consider and address how multiple sociostructural dimensions (i.e., strong intersectionality) may be impacting the client's presenting problems. Alternatively, focusing solely on the impact of sociostructural dimensions on the lives of clients may miss the more nuanced and variable individual personal experiences. In this article, we highlight the challenge of maintaining a culturally responsive and racially conscious stance when considering multiple marginalized identities, overlapping systemic inequities, and how both affect clients' lives and experiences. The case of an AfroLatinx queer immigrant is presented to illustrate some of the challenges and opportunities while simultaneously considering (a) the client's multiple marginalized identities, (b) the way clients are impacted by systemic oppression, and (c) integrating the client's personal experiences and narratives in psychotherapy. (PsycINFO Database Record, ((c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).)

In this study, we explored 2 questions: (a) Consistent with the cultural match theory (CMT), did treatment adherence and outcome improve as discrepancies between the cultural features of an anxiety treatment and patient characteristics decreased, and (b) In agreement with the specific therapy ingredient model (STIM), did the psychotherapeutic outcomes of a Culturally Competent Relaxation Intervention (CCRI) designed to reduce anxiety more effectively reduce anxiety rather than depression symptoms? The CCRI includes allocentric (the tendency to define oneself in relationship to others) relaxation interventions, while traditional relaxation strategies employ idiocentric (the tendency to define oneself in isolation from others) relaxation interventions. The CCRI was assessed with 44 Latino/a adults of low socioeconomic backgrounds. The results supported 2 hypotheses: (a) Based on the CMT, a relationship was found between participants' levels of allocentrism and their consequent levels of treatment adherence, and (b) Consistent with the STIM, treatment adherence on the CCRI was correlated with reductions in anxiety, but not with depressive symptoms. These findings are discussed with a focus on future efforts to create culturally competent interventions., (© 2011 American Orthopsychiatric Association.)

This paper proposes a first step in deciding whether it is necessary to develop a cultural adaptation by comparing the cultural characteristics of an intervention with the same characteristics of a specific group. Larger cultural differences suggest a greater need to conduct a cultural adaptation. This recommendation stems from the cultural match theory (CMT) which, explains that therapeutic outcomes increase as interventions are more similar to the cultural characteristics of specific treatment groups. However, the CMT has rarely been tested, partly because strategies to effectively measure the cultural characteristics of an intervention are still lacking. This article addresses this gap by assessing two dimensions of the self-orientation relevant to cultural adaptations, namely, idiocentrism--the tendency to define oneself in isolation from others--and allocentrism--the tendency to define oneself in relationship to others--through a content analysis of guided imagery scripts. Two independent evaluators analyzed 123 guided imagery scripts (published during 1989-2008) using 6 theoretically derived categories to analyze idiocentrism versus allocentrism. Results indicated that idiocentric elements were 1.5 to 52.3 times more frequently used than were allocentric ones. The implications of these findings for the development of culturally adapted interventions are discussed., (© 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.)