About the Book
This book presents psychological assessment and intervention in a cultural and relational context. A diverse range of contributors representing six continents and eleven countries write about their therapeutic interventions, all of which break the traditional assessor-as-expert-oriented framework and offer a creative adaptation in service delivery. A Collaborative/Therapeutic Assessment model, including work with immigrant communities, and Indigenous modalities underscore individual and collective case illustrations highlighting equality in the roles of the provider and the receiver of services. The universality and uniqueness of culture are explored as a construct and through case material. Some chapters describe a partnership with a Eurocentric scientific model, while others adopt a purely community method, preserved with Indigenous language and subjective methodology. This volume brings together diverse therapeutic collaborative ideas, and recognizes relational, community, and cultural psychologies as integral to mainstream assessment and intervention literature. This book is essential for psychologists and clinicians internationally and graduate students.
Table of Contents:
Foreword, Jim Allen; Introduction: Culture, Collaboration, and Community, Barbara L. Mercer, Heather Macdonald, and Caroline Purves; Section I. Psychological Service Delivery; 1: Beginnings: Psychological Service Delivery, Barbara L. Mercer; 2: Paradigms for Well-Being: Ways of Knowing and Psychological Services, Barbara L. Mercer; Section II: Collaborative/Therapeutic Assessment Models; 3: Assessment, Training, and Social Justice in Community Psychology, Heather Macdonald, Barbara L. Mercer, and Caroline Purves; 4: Assessment of Japanese Children, Hikikomori, Noriko Nakamura; 5: Growing Empathy with Complex Clients in Developing Countries: Collaborative/Therapeutic Assessment in Latinoamérica, Ernesto Pais and Daniela Belloc; 6: Culture and Psychological Assessment in India, Kakli Gupta; Section III: Collaboration and Immigration; 7: Collaborative Assessment from a Transcultural Perspective: Cooperativa Crinali’s Experience in Milan, Italy, Marta Breda, Nicole Fratellani, Francesca Grosso, Ilaria Oltolini, Benedetta Rubino, and Stefania Sharley; 8: "Different Cultures Wear Different Shoes!" Therapeutic Assessment with a 17-Year-Old Immigrant Boy in the Netherlands, Hilde De Saeger and Inge Van Laer; 9: Psychological Assessment of South Sudanese Persons in Mental Health Treatment in the United States, John Chuol Kuek; Section IV: New Measures, Alternative Interventions, and Indigenous Inclusion; 10: Singing to the Lions - A Program to Help Children Respond Effectively to Fear and Violence in Their Lives: Culturally Relevant Assessment and Intervention in Zimbabwe and Beyond, Jonathan Brakarsh, Lucy Y. Steinitz, Jane Chidzungu, Eugenia Mpande, and Lightwell Mpofu; 11: Indigenous Inclusion and Intervention: The Flight of Eagles, Shaun Hains; 12: The Interface: Western Tools and the Mental Health and Wellbeing of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples, Helen Milroy, Monique Platell, and Shraddha Kashyap
About the Author :
Barbara L. Mercer, PhD, is the former Assessment Program Director and clinical supervisor at WestCoast Children’s Clinic, a community psychology clinic in Oakland, California. She has worked in community mental health throughout her career. She has presented and written about foster care, culture, trauma, and collaborative assessment.
Heather Macdonald, PsyD, has been a licensed clinical psychologist since 2010 and has focused her practice on psychological assessment. She has produced numerous scholarly publications on the interface between culture, social justice, relational ethics, clinical practice, post-colonial thought, and psycho-political theory.
Caroline Purves, PhD, has administered psychological assessments for over 30 years, working with clients of all ages and a variety of ethnicities and backgrounds in the US, Canada, and England.
Review :
"This excellent collection demonstrates the importance of cultural context in assessing and treating clients using the Collaborative/Therapeutic Assessment model. The editors present articles from six continents and 11 countries, each written by a mental health specialist from their home country. These case studies illuminate how assessment and treatment methods must respect each client's cultural experiences and must be adapted to each person's language, history, and current life circumstances…The Collaborative/Therapeutic Assessment model challenges traditional DSM diagnoses, insurance codes, and training methods to provide a more effective focus on the distress of clients with complex ethnic, racial, and trauma backgrounds. This is a valuable and unique resource for mental health specialists, training programs, and practitioners as they encounter clients from ever more diverse backgrounds."
D. L. Loers, Akoan Consulting, CHOICE, March 2024
Be prepared to be challenged and inspired on this around-the-world trip through the development, adaptation, and application of culturally relevant, community oriented, and truly collaborative therapeutic interventions. This journey offers an immersion into the wide array of cultural values, beliefs, and ways of knowing around the globe that inform what diverse clients need and what psychologists must understand to help people and communities heal from trauma and loss and find well-being. Don’t miss the chance to "Sing with the Lions" and take "Flight with the Eagles".
Deborah Tharinger, Professor Emeritus, University of Texas at Austin; Founding Member of the Therapeutic Assessment Institute; a co-author of Therapeutic Assessment with Children: Enhancing Parental Empathy through Psychological Assessment, 2022.
Truly a very interesting and fascinating work that represents a relevant contribution for those who care about collaborative/therapeutic assessment. Ranging from one continent to another, addressing the most diverse and disparate issues, this work offers a 360-degree view of the fundamental role socio-cultural aspects of belonging play in psychological intervention-- including the environmental context and the original culture. Moved by the desire to deepen their knowledge of different cultures, Mercer, Purves and Macdonald have enriched their personal contributions with those of over 20 authors who live and work in various countries. The result is a colorful kaleidoscope of collaborative/ therapeutic assessment all around the world.
Alessandro Crisi, Psy.D., Italian Institute of Wartegg, Rome, Italy
From Zimbabwe, India, and Japan to other places around the globe, this engaging volume provides moving accounts of collaborative, culturally respectful mental health interventions tailored to the communities they are designed to help. Multiple chapters illustrate how Collaborative/Therapeutic Assessment (C/TA) can be adapted to different cultures, and anyone practicing C/TA will want to own this book.
Stephen E. Finn, Ph.D. President, Therapeutic Assessment Institute.
