Lorraine T. Benuto - Handbook of Cultural Factors in Behavioral Health: A Guide for the Helping Professional

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Across the behavioral health field there is an urgency to employ cultural considerations into professional practice. As such American Psychological Association (APA, ). Since then, much has been written about cultural competency .

Cultural competency is commonly defined using a three-dimensional model (Sue et al., ). Benuto and colleagues highlighted that given the diverse nature of the USA, psychologists must develop a sophisticated level of knowledge regarding cultures and subcultures. Indeed, given the rapid diversification of the USA, there is a need for guidelines for working with diverse clients. This book attempts to fulfill this need.

This book is designed for clinicians who work with culturally diverse clients, for scholars who write about and research this area, and for students who are learning about how cultural factors are relevant to the helping profession. In the USA, minority ethnic groups are growing substantially, with 28% of the US population identifying as races other than White (Colby & Ortman, (). With a diverse pool of clients, helping professionals must be prepared to work with diverse clients. Having the knowledge and capacity to deliver therapy to diverse clients will undoubtedly create better client-therapist relationships and produce positive clinical outcomes. This book aims to provide clinicians with easy to access resources/tools that will assist them working with diverse clients.

This book is organized in three sections: a general section that includes chapters on defining relevant concepts (i.e., cultural competency), ethical and epidemiological considerations when working with culturally diverse clients, assessment practices for working with diverse clients, cultural considerations in using empirically supported treatments, and common factors as they relate to working with diverse clients. The second section includes a series of chapters on working with specific cultural groups. There are two points that must be made with regard to the second section of this book. First, we absolutely recognize that within group differences exist and that practitioners will encounter clients who have multiple cultural identities. The extant research has highlighted how variables such as acculturation and immigration status are important variables to consider with regard to client outcomes (Benuto & Bennett, ). Thus, while the chapters in Section two of this book are intended to provide an overview of cultural considerations for major cultural groups in the USA, readers are encouraged to consider how other cultural variables may intersect with those covered in individual chapters in this book. Second, readers may notice absent chaptersit is noteworthy that we struggled to find authors to write chapters on cultural considerations for key cultural groups in the USA (e.g., Native Americans ). Our review of the extant literature yielded some insight into why we struggled to find authors for certain chaptersthere is limited behavioral health research on certain cultural groups. To mitigate this, we included a section in this chapter on limitations across the extant literature on behavioral health. The last section of this book includes a series of chapters on presenting problems that practitioners are likely to encounter (e.g., anxiety, chronic pain, sleep disorders, relationship problems etc.).