Attending to the Intersectionality and Saliency of Clients' Identities: A Further Investigation of Therapists' Multicultural Orientation.

Psychotherapy clients often hold multiple and varied cultural identities, and it is important for therapists to attend to the intersectionality of clients' cultural identities, as well as the saliency of these identities. However, to date, few studies have considered the saliency of clients' multiple identities and how this may impact clients' perceptions of cultural processes in therapy. Therefore, this study utilized polynomial regression and response surface analysis to operationalize and examine congruent and discrepant effects between the saliency of clients' multiple identities and their perceptions of their therapists' cultural humility and cultural missed opportunities. Data for this study consisted of 87 clients who received individual counseling services at either a university counseling center or training clinic at two large universities in the United States. As hypothesized, results indicated significant discrepant effects between the saliency of clients' first and second most important cultural identities and perceptions of their therapists' cultural humility and cultural missed opportunities. Specifically, clients' ratings of their therapist's cultural missed opportunities were lowest when they reported either a) high saliency of cultural identity one and low saliency of cultural identity two, or b) low saliency of cultural identity one and high saliency of cultural identity two. Similarly, clients' ratings of their therapist's cultural humility were highest when they reported either a) high saliency of cultural identity one and low saliency of cultural identity two, or b) low saliency of cultural identity one and high saliency of cultural identity two. Public Significance Statement: This study found that when the salience of clients' two most important cultural identities was discrepant (i.e., high-low or low-high), they perceived their therapist to be high in culturally humility and low in cultural missed opportunities. Therapists should acknowledge that clients often hold multiple cultural identities and that the saliency of these identities may differ in meaningful ways. Therapists should attend to this complexity from a multicultural framework to engage in culturally responsive care. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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