SW 312 Chapter Notes - Chapter 10: Biculturalism, Ethnocentrism, Identified Patient

• School: NCSU
• Department: Social Work
• Course: SW 312
• Professor: Richard Tyler- Walker, Jr.

Document Summary

Most racially/ethnically marginalized groups in our society are collectivistic in orientation and use the family as the psychosocial unit of operation. Social workers need to understand the many differences across cultures in regard to how the family is defined. Addresses many aspects of the family: marital counseling and therapy, parent-child counseling or consultation, work with more than one member of the family. Main goal: to modify relationships within a family to achieve harmony. The communication approach: based on the assumption that family problems arise from communication difficulties, many communication problems are subtle and complex, the counselor"s role in repairing faulty communication is active but not dominating. The structural approach: emphasizes the interlocking roles of family members, most families are constantly in a state of change. They are in the process of structuring and restructuring themselves into. Hoboken, nj: john wiley & sons, inc: place the counselor in an expert position. These tendencies can cause ethnocentric problems in multicultural therapy environments.