In the world of therapy, it is commonly accepted that a client''s cultural background is a significant contributor to the therapeutic process. Clinicians are taught to be respectful of the cultural perspectives in the therapy room by acknowledging the client''s cultural values, their own cultural values, and the similarities and differences between the two. Although clinicians are taught the importance of doing this, effective ways of translating it into practice have been difficult to locate. Recent research (Vargas & Wilson, 2011) suggests that as clinicians attempt to privilege the cultural values of their clients, they increase their supervision of self in an effort to manage preconceptions of cross-cultural clients and that this self-supervision can result in loss of focus on the psychological issues present in the therapy room. That is, as clinicians attempted to move beyond their own culture and instead to privilege the client’s cultural voice, they actually avoided actively engaging their cross-cultural clients because of their desire to be unbiased. This research is especially important to clinicians who work from social construction/postmodern informed practices given that these practices, more than others, attempt to engage clients’ local knowledge in the co-creation of a successful therapy process. In this workshop, four clinicians, representing four ethnic backgrounds – Puerto Rican, Caucasian, Mexican, and Afro-Caribbean – share their experiences, as they relate to the above-mentioned findings, in working with culturally diverse client populations. Workshop participants will be encouraged to engage in conversation to further enhance cross-cultural engagement in therapy by (1) sharing how they bring themselves fully into dialogue when working cross-culturally and (2) collaboratively developing ideas of what is needed to respect local knowledge while continually engaging both clients and therapist across cultural boundaries in the process of therapy.  

Considerable research documents that relationship quality is a significant factor affecting health, especially through the impact of hormones during times of stress (Mlot, 1998; Pennisi, 1997). Ever since Jessie Bernard published “His Marriage and Her Marriage” in 1973, scholars have documented that heterosexual women receive less benefit from couple relationships than their  male partners. When responsibility for attending to one’s partner and maintaining the relationship is not mutual, this gender imbalance is perpetuated. The gender disparity in the giving and taking of care is a significant health issue, yet most models of couple therapy do not address it (Knudson-Martin & Huenergardt, 2010; Lyness & Lyness, 2007). This workshop presents a research-based clinical model that enables couples to overcome this inequity and develop a foundation of mutual support.   A growing line of research documents that gender equality provides an important and necessary foundation for relationship success (e.g., Gottman, 2011; Jonathan & Knudson-Martin, 2012; Steil, 1997). Overcoming societal gender patterns that limit mutual support is thus both an ethical and pragmatic issue for couple therapists. However, the societal gender processes that place relational burdens on women and make emotional support from male partners less available to women are often hard to see because they are taken-for-granted as part of everyday experience.    In this workshop we will begin with a brief review of research that shows how gendered power is a relational issue that affects how the needs, emotions, and goals of one partner influence the other. These power processes are often covert, reflected in controlling the topics that are discussed, lack of interest in the partner, and minimizing communication. Consequences are substantial, and include depression (for both women and men), invalidation of personal identity, relational disillusionment and dissatisfaction, loss of flexibility, and battles for control (Greenberg & Goldman, 2008; Jack & Ali, 2010). We also draw on lessons from study of same-sex couples (Jonathan, 2009) that show that when gender differences do not organize relationship patterns, couples create equality through a focus on mutual attunement, shared relational responsibilities, attention to fairness, and awareness of power differences.   We will also consider several factors that limit attention to mutual support. First, across cultural contexts couples increasingly hold egalitarian ideals, but do not have a model for an equal, mutually supportive couple relationship (Coontz, 2005; Sullivan, 2006; Gerson, 2010). Men, in particular, have a hard time living up to their own ideals. Secondly, people often believe that gender issues are no longer a concern and miss the more subtle ways that gender processes continue to shape contemporary heterosexual relationship patterns (Mahoney & Knudson-Martin, 2009; Gottman, 2011). Third, researchers and therapists tend to speak of relationship problems and couple distress as though the couple structure is inherently equal (Leslie & Southard, 2009; Williams, 2011).   To address this gender imbalance, we will offer an overview of a socio-emotional approach to couple therapy that begins with the premise that mutually supportive relationships promote health and healing. The approach is organized around four gender-related aspects of mutual support: (a) mutual vulnerability, (b) mutual attunement, (c) shared influence, and (d) shared relational responsibility. With an emphasis on the social context of emotion, the approach integrates an experiential focus on relational process with social constructionist understandings of gender, culture, personal identities, and relationship patterns. It is successful because both women and men are able to see the consequences of societal gender patterns in their intimate relationships and take actions to create new, more equitable relationship processes that support women as well as men.    Based on the findings of several task analyses of this model, we will offer specific guidelines for practice and use video clips of a case example to illustrate how to empower couples to confront stereotypic gender processes and experience mutual support (see figure 1). Findings identify four tasks necessary for successful change: (1) creating an equitable foundation for healing, (2) creating space for alternate gender discourse, (3) pursuing relational responsibility of powerful partner, and (4) new experience of mutual support. Critical to these interventions are therapist’s awareness of power dynamics that organize couple relationships, therapist’s leadership in intervening in power processes, and socio-cultural attunement to gender discourse.  

Ever since Jessie Bernard published “His Marriage and Her Marriage” in 1974, scholars have documented that heterosexual women receive less benefit from couple relationships than their male partners. Considerable recent research also documents that gender equality provides an important and necessary foundation for relational success. Overcoming societal gender patterns that limit mutual support is thus both an ethical and pragmatic issue for couple therapists. However, the societal gender processes that place relational burdens on women and make emotional support from male partners less available to women are often hard to see because they are taken-for-granted as part of everyday experience. In this workshop we will begin with the findings of a study that dramatically shows how the effect of gender on relational attunement may help explain why gender equality contributes to relationship success.  Then we will present a socio-emotional approach to couple therapy that addresses four gender-related aspects of mutual support: (a) mutual vulnerability, (b) mutual attunement, (c) shared influence, and (d) shared relational responsibility. The presenters will use video clips of a case example to illustrate seven clinical competencies which enable therapists to empower couples to confront stereotypic gender processes and experience mutual support. With an emphasis on the social context of emotion, the approach integrates an experiential focus on relational process with social constructionist understandings of gender, culture, personal identities, and relationship patterns.It is successful because both women and men are able to see the consequences of societal gender patterns in their intimate relationships and take actions to create new, more equitable relationship processes that support women as well as men.   

We describe our ethical dilemmas conducting a needs assessment for a women’s initiative in two coastal villages in Honduras. These communities face health, relational, economic, and gender disparities that intersect with over-consumption of natural resources, environmental degradation, and poverty. The nature of our contact with the women influenced the type and depth of information disclosed. Asking formal interview questions did not appear culturally sensitive because women expected the researcher to innately understand the consequences of poverty, limited education access, and traditional gender roles, and they saw us in leadership roles with the power and resources to enact change. On the other hand, in informal discussion the women’s narratives naturally provided intimate accounts of community, gender, and family power structures that perpetuate the women’s current relational, socio-economic, and status concerns in the community. The women did not actively describe themselves as “distressed,” and we were left with an unclear sense of appropriate use of our power to facilitate actions that build on their resilience yet challenge injustices.