Applying Cultural Humility Principles to Psychotherapy

In Applying Cultural Humility Principles to Psychotherapy, Anu Asnaani, PhD, aims to highlight some foundational principles of engaging in cultural humility within the context of evidence-based therapy approaches. The intent is to make the practice of cultural humility, which encourages therapists (of all experience levels) to recognize and account for their own lived experiences, biases, and power/privilege within the therapy context, as salient and integrated into their active treatment strategies as possible.

Specifically, in the therapy demonstration provided in this video, Dr. Asnaani identifies practical guidelines that have been derived from the empirical and theoretical psychological literature on integrating issues of identity and related constructs into clinical practice, with concrete demonstration around how such techniques can be used while adhering to a range of evidence-based psychological therapies. In her explanation of these core concepts, she draws from the multicultural psychology literature generated by a number of cultural clinical psychologists in the field, to draw attention to how constructs such as intersectionality, power, privilege, discrimination/microaggressions, social justice and broad life stressors can be addressed during psychotherapy.

Importantly, Dr. Asnaani strives to exemplify how clients of all backgrounds can serve to benefit from the integration of such concepts and how a therapist can be culturally humble while doing so to maximize impact of psychotherapy on therapeutic targets. This demonstration, hosted by Katherine Helm, PhD, will also aim to show how these practical guidelines for integrating cultural humility can be utilized both during assessment and intervention phases of treatment.

Applying cultural humility to psychotherapy is a practice that involves working with clients from a diverse set of intersectional identities within the context of evidence-based practice. This specific approach is based on seven guidelines rooted in empirical data around addressing health disparities, established practice recommendations, clinical experience, therapeutic protocols, and training across practice settings to incorporate diversity perspectives into treatment. The seven guidelines are 1) exploring your own cultural identity, beliefs, and biases before providing therapy; 2) practicing cultural humility as a continuous process; 3) balancing culturally informed and individualized assessment of the presenting problem; 4) engaging in self-education about specific cultural norms using a variety of sources; 5) addressing stigma and other cultural barriers to psychological treatment; 6) exploring the impact of discrimination and microaggressions in therapy; and 7) identifying and incorporating cultural strengths and resources into treatment.

Anu Asnaani, PhD, is a licensed clinical psychologist who currently is the principal investigator of the Treatment Mechanisms, Community Empowerment, and Technology Innovations (TCT) laboratory and an associate professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, UT, USA. She was previously an assistant professor at University of Pennsylvania from 2013-2018 and associate director of the Center for Treatment and Study of Anxiety from 2017-2018, which is a world-renowned research powerhouse for posttraumatic stress disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and anxiety disorders. She completed her PhD in Clinical Psychology from Boston University from 2007-2013, and her clinical internship from the Brown Alpert Medical School from 2012-2013. Her research focuses on understanding the underlying mechanisms to improve treatments for fear-based disorders such as anxiety disorders, PTSD, and OCD in diverse local and global community settings.

Dr. Asnaani is particularly interested in expanding our understanding about how basic emotion processes (such as how we regulate strong emotions in the face of stressful life events or how we tolerate distress) can be targeted to reduce negative impacts on mental health, and how we can do this for a greater diversity of individuals from a range of backgrounds and countries. To date, Dr. Asnaani has published over 75 peer-reviewed articles and 20 book chapters/invited publications on this area. This is in addition to her recently published book (Asnaani, 2023) that provides the foundation for this training video on integrating cultural humility principles into evidence-based care with Oxford University Press. Clinically, Dr. Asnaani has provided therapy to several hundred patients using cognitive behavioral therapy over the past 15 years, and she has been the primary supervisor for over 30 therapists whom she has trained to treat a variety of mental health issues including anxiety/mood disorders, PTSD, OCD, substance use disorders, and personality disorders. Dr. Asnaani has also been invited to deliver over 40 workshops and trainings for hundreds of mental health professionals such as lay counselors, social workers, nurses, advocates, and first responders, typically in the areas of recognizing and treating mental health dysfunction for providers in high schools/colleges, prison systems, community mental health programs, primary care settings, and graduate programs in clinical psychology both in the U.S. and elsewhere (e.g., Sweden, Japan, and the Caribbean).

APA Books

Bryant-Davis, T. (2019). Multicultural feminist therapy: Helping adolescent girls of color to thrive. American Psychological Association.

Comas-Diaz, L. (2023). Multicultural care: A clinician's guide to cultural competence. American Psychological Association.

Harris, J., Jin, J., Hoffman, S., Phan, S., Prout, T. A., Rousmaniere, T., & Vaz, A. (2023). Deliberate practice in multicultural therapy. American Psychological Association.

Hays, P. A. (2022). Addressing cultural complexities in counseling and clinical practice: An intersectional approach (4th ed.). American Psychological Association.

Iwamasa, G. Y., & Hays, P. A. (Eds.). (2019). Culturally responsive cognitive behavior therapy: Practice and supervision (2nd ed.). American Psychological Association.

Vasquez, M. J. T., Johnson, J. D. (2022). Multicultural therapy: A practice imperative. American Psychological Association.

APA Videos

Emotion and Culture in Psychotherapy
Shigeru Iwakabe

Multicultural Orientation in Psychotherapy
Cynthia de las Fuentes

Multicultural Feminist Therapy With Adolescent Girls of Color
Thema Bryant-Davis

Cultural Humility in Therapy
Cirleen DeBlaere and Jesse Owen

Culturally Informed Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy
Pratyusha Tummala-Narra

Multicultural Care in Practice
Lillian Comas-Díaz

Other Suggested Resources

Asnaani, A. (2023). A cultural humility and social justice approach to psychotherapy: Seven applied guidelines for evidence-based practice. Oxford University Press: New York, NY.

Asnaani, A., Majeed, I. M., Kaur, K., & Gutierrez Chavez, M. (2022). "Diversity and clinical perspectives in psychology. In G. Asmundson (Ed.)," Comprehensive Clinical Psychology (2nd ed., pp. 202– 224). Elsevier. 

Asnaani, A., & Hofmann, S.G. (2012). "Collaboration in culturally responsive therapy: Establishing a strong therapeutic alliance across cultural lines." Journal of Clinical Psychology: In Session, 68(2), 187-197.

American Psychological Association. (2017). "Multicultural guidelines: An ecological approach to context, identity and intersectionality." https://www.apa.org/about/policy/multicultural-guidelines.pdfopens in new window