(PS6-75) Clinician Awareness, Judgement, and Decision-making of Cultural Mismatch Within the Family Therapy Context

Abstract Text: This study explores the clinical awareness, judgment, and decision-making processes of clinical psychology trainees and early career psychologists when addressing parent-child discrepancies in reported therapy goals of family therapy. The focus is on understanding how early career clinicians evaluate cultural mismatch in immigrant families, where discrepancies arise due to generational acculturation. Cultural mismatch refers to the misalignment between the cultural values, norms, and behaviors of immigrant parents and their children, who were either born or raised in the United States. Parents often retain cultural practices from their country of origin, while children are influenced by or immersed in the dominant American culture. This results in differences in expectations, beliefs, and practices, leading to miscommunication, misunderstandings, and conflict, which can complicate therapy and disrupt family dynamics.
Parent-child discrepancies often reflect deeper cultural tensions that influence the therapeutic process. For example, parents may focus on issues such as academic achievement, family obligations, or respect for authority, while children may prioritize identity, peer relationships, or mental health concerns. These generational differences can affect how problems are presented in therapy and shape clinicians' approach to treatment. However, little is known about how early career clinicians navigate these cultural discrepancies, which has important implications for clinical practice, training, and supervision.
This study aims to identify how clinical trainees and early career psychologists recognize and respond to cultural mismatch in therapy. Specifically, it will examine how clinicians assess and interpret cultural discrepancies between parents’ and children’s reports of top-problems and how cultural competence influences their clinical decisions. Through understanding these processes, the research seeks to shed light on how early career clinicians address cultural differences in therapeutic settings.
A thematic analysis approach will be used to capture the lived experiences of trainees and early career clinicians. Semi-structured interviews will be conducted with a diverse group of participants who have worked with immigrant families. The data will be analyzed using thematic analysis to identify key themes related to cultural awareness, clinical judgment, and therapeutic strategies for managing parent-child discrepancies.
This research is expected to reveal the challenges clinicians face when dealing with cultural mismatch and how their cultural competence influences their approach to therapy. Clinicians with greater cultural awareness are expected to demonstrate more nuanced, culturally sensitive responses. The findings will contribute to the understanding of cultural awareness and clinical decision-making in therapy with diverse families and have significant implications for enhancing training programs aimed at improving cultural competence in clinical psychology, while integrating research based frameworks such as the attribution bias context model as a tool for facilitating more thoughtful consideration of goal-setting with diverse families.