Ethnicity and Psychotherapy

Abstract

Visualize, if you will, a community mental health center located in an urban area that serves a predominantly ethnic minority population. Seated in the waiting room are a middle-aged, black American couple; a young white Cuban mother and her two young children; a black Barbadian mother, her two latency-aged children, and one adolescent child. The health center receptionist is a young adult black American and a resident of the community. The therapist enters the waiting room to greet her client for the first time. The therapist is a middle-aged white Irish American, and her client is the middle-aged black American female. The client looks at her husband and slowly gets up to follow the therapist to her office.