Culturally Informed Psychodynamic Psychotherapy Online

In this video program, Dr. Pratyusha Tummala-Narra demonstrates culturally informed psychoanalytic psychodynamic psychotherapy in a teletherapy session. The approach demonstrated integrates sociocultural awareness with psychoanalytic concepts, multicultural psychology, and feminist psychology.

Throughout the program, Dr. Tummala-Narra’s work is built around culturally informed concepts such as expanding self-examination to include the exploration of the effects of historical trauma and neglect of sociocultural issues; recognizing clients’ and therapists’ indigenous cultural narrative, and the conscious and unconscious motivations accompanying such narratives; examining the role of context in the use of language and the expression of affect in psychotherapy; attending to the client’s and therapist’s experiences of social oppression and the importance of recognizing complex, intersecting cultural identifications in both creative, adaptive, and self-damaging ways.

Watch as Dr. Tummala-Narra demonstrates the approach with a Sikh Indian American man, and discusses her work with host, Dr. Katherine Helm.

This session features clients portrayed by actors on the basis of a composite of different cases.

Dr. Pratyusha Tummala-Narra approaches her work from a psychodynamic lens that is culturally informed, a framework that is shaped by psychoanalytic concepts, multicultural psychology, and feminist psychology. She is interested in how intrapsychic and interpersonal experiences are shaped by sociocultural realities, and in individuals’ unique experiences of their sociocultural contexts.

In an effort to integrate sociocultural experience into psychoanalytic theory and psychoanalytic/psychodynamic psychotherapy, she has developed a framework that emphasizes the following:

1. Expand self-examination to include the exploration of the effects of historical trauma and neglect of sociocultural issues in psychoanalysis on present and future psychoanalytic theory and practice.
2. Recognize clients’ and therapists’ indigenous cultural narrative, and the conscious and unconscious meanings and motivations accompanying these narratives.
3. Recognize the role of context in the use of language and the expression of affect in psychotherapy.
4. Attend to how client’s and therapist’s experiences of social oppression and stereotypes of the other influence the therapist, the client, and therapeutic process, and outcome.
5. Recognize that culture itself is dynamic, and that individuals negotiate complex, intersecting cultural identifications in both creative, adaptive ways, and self-damaging ways, as evidenced in the use of defense.

Pratyusha Tummala-Narra, PhD is a professor of counseling, developmental and educational psychology and director of doctoral training in counseling psychology at Boston College. She is also in independent practice.

Her research and scholarship focus on immigration, trauma, race, and cultural competence and psychoanalytic psychotherapy.

She has served as the chair of the Multicultural Concerns Committee and member-at-large on the board of directors in the APA Division 39 (Psychoanalysis), and as a member of the APA Committee on Ethnic Minority Affairs, the APA Presidential Task Force on Immigration, and the APA Task Force on Revising the Multicultural Guidelines.

Dr. Tummala-Narra is an associate editor of the Asian American Journal of Psychology, associate editor of Psychoanalytic Dialogues, and senior psychotherapy editor of the Journal of Humanistic Psychology. She is a fellow of APA, and with APA Division 39 and Division 45.

She is the author of Psychoanalytic Theory and Cultural Competence in Psychotherapy, published by APA Books in 2016. Her edited book, Trauma and Racial Minority Immigrants: Turmoil, Uncertainty, and Resistance, was published by APA Books in January 2021.

Beginning in January 2022, Dr. Tummala-Narra will join a new position as the director of community-based education at the Danielsen Institute and research professor in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Boston University.

Tummala-Narra, P.  (2016). Psychoanalytic theory and cultural competence in psychotherapy. American Psychological Association

Tummala-Narra, P. (Ed.) (2021). Trauma and racial minority immigrants: Turmoil, uncertainty,and resistance. [APA Division 45 Book Series.] American Psychological Association.

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Books

Internationalizing Multiculturalism: Expanding Professional Competencies in a Globalized World
Edited by Rodney L. Lowman

Cultural Adaptations: Tools for Evidence-Based Practice With Diverse Populations         
Edited by Guillermo Bernal and Melanie M. Domenech Rodríguez

Trauma and Racial Minority Immigrants: Turmoil, Uncertainty, and Resistance
Pratyusha Tummala-Narra

Applying Multiculturalism: An Ecological Approach to the APA Guidelines
Caroline S. Clauss-Ehlers, Scott J. Hunter, Gayle Skawennio Morse, and Pratyusha Tummala-Narra

Spiritual Diversity in Psychotherapy: Engaging the Sacred in Clinical Practice
Steven J. Sandage and Brad D. Strawn

Sexual Boundary Violations in Psychotherapy: Facing Therapist Indiscretions, Transgressions, and Misconduct
Edited Arlene (Lu) Steinberg, Judith L. Alpert, and Christine A. Courtois