How to Provide Culturally Appropriate Care for African American Families, An Interview with Mercedes Samudio, LCSW

Curt and Katie interview Mercedes Samudio, LCSW, about working with African American Families. We talk about what therapists typically get wrong when working with these families, what therapists need to know about working with African American families, how to work cross culturally, and how both conscious and unconscious bias impact therapy.

Transcripts for this episode will be available at mtsgpodcast.com!

In this podcast episode, we talk about how therapists can work with African American families more effectively

Our friend, Mercedes Samudio, LCSW, is researching how therapists can best support African American families. She is looking at how these clients are treated and how they traverse the mental health system to get healing.

What do therapists get wrong when working with African American Families?

·      Therapists will apply therapy universally to diverse groups that require nuance and different interventions

·      Therapists don't understand enough about African American families to understand the differences

What do therapists need to know about African American families?

·      There are differences between “Black” and “African American”

·      The impacts of the transatlantic slave trade

·      Cultural differences based on which country one is living in as well as how one travels as a human in their country of residence

How can therapists work cross-culturally with African American families?

·      Specialized training like Mercedes’ training: Engaging African American Families

·      Work with people who have expertise

·      Google alerts for

·      Understanding how you show up in the world, create an identity statement for all of the identities you have that are relevant to you, your social location

·      Talking about conscious and unconscious bias and identities throughout the therapy process

·      Understanding generational differences

How do conscious and unconscious bias impact therapy?

·      What we know we don’t like about people (conscious)

·      What may influence us from before we understand labels and differences

·      Prejudices that influence how we show up in the therapy room can cause conflict

·      Explore the conflict, explore the potential biases

·      Use tentative language (I wonder if this is showing up here or impacting our relationship)

·      Understanding how your identity often shows up socially can provide the therapist with fodder for exploring what bias may be present in the room

What are best practices for working with African American families?

·      Genograms are helpful to explore how everything impacts the family members and who they say are included in their families

·      Understanding how these families fit within their communities and who is involved with each of these families

Resources for Modern Therapists mentioned in this Podcast Episode:

We’ve pulled together resources mentioned in this episode and put together some handy-dandy links. Please note that some of the links below may be affiliate links, so if you purchase after clicking below, we may get a little bit of cash in our pockets. We thank you in advance!

https://shameproofparenting.com/

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Voice Over by DW McCann https://www.facebook.com/McCannDW/

Music by Crystal Grooms Mangano https://groomsymusic.com/