Family Therapy as a Complex Cultural and Sociopolitical Encounter | Celia Falicov, PhD 

This lecture is part of the Ackerman Distinguished Family Therapy Lecture Series, designed to contribute to conversations on advancements and opportunities in family therapy training.
From its inception, family therapy endeavored to understand and incorporate the impact of the social context in individual and family life. Today, the need to address the cultural and sociopolitical issues affecting families and society has become a critical aspect of the training and practice of family therapy.
This lecture presented by Celia Falicov, PhD, will present an ecological and postmodern framework that facilitates the systematic and yet non-stereotyped incorporation of cultural diversity and socially and racially just therapeutic practices. While this strength-based framework addresses the needs of under-resourced and underserved families, it also encompasses comparative work with mainstream families. Issues of intersectionality, cultural humility, and awareness of power differentials in the therapeutic relationship are discussed to increase practitioners’ self-awareness of the role that their sociocultural and racial assumptions and preferences play in the therapeutic encounter.
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