Introduction to Multicultural Couple Therapy

Introduction to Multicultural Couple Therapy

A few years ago, a client1 walked into my (MR's) clinic. He seemed to be a White man in his 40s, tall and well dressed. After filling out the paperwork, Joe talked for a few minutes about his symptoms of depression and his conflict with his wife. Then, rather abruptly, he sat up and said: “Dr. Rastogi, this may not be obvious to you but my father is Black. My mother is White. Most people can't tell from looking at me. I just want to mention it.” Then he sat back, looking somewhat tentatively at me.

He was very light-skinned, and I would most definitely not have guessed his biracial identity had he not told me. I was also embarrassed because I had failed to read this fact on his intake form; he had clearly checked the “biracial” category under ethnicity. I thanked him for informing me, apologized for not noting the information earlier, and proceeded to ask detailed questions about his background, his current relationship, and his symptoms of depression. Before the session ended, I specifically [Page 4]probed his feelings about his biracial identity, the fact that he can “pass as White,” and also his feelings about being in therapy with someone ethnically different from him.

The following week, he and his wife Ginny came in for couple therapy. She was White, of European origin, and was raised in a very economically privileged family. The couple had been married for one year, and prior to that had been engaged for seven months while in a long-distance, transcontinental relationship. They discussed their conflict patterns and their feelings of “stuckness” with me. They had been in couple therapy with a previous therapist but had dropped out after two sessions.

Using an Emotionally Focused Therapy (Johnson, 2004) framework, it became clear that he was the “pursuer” in the relationship and she was the “distancer.” He picked fights with her, she withdrew, and he panicked and tried to back-pedal. As I observed them getting stuck in their cyclical pattern, I tried to think of ways to inject new information into their interactions. I asked how their different backgrounds impacted their relationship. There was silence in the room for about 30 seconds. Joe started to say something intellectual about “growing up biracial in the ’60s.” He stopped, blinked back tears, and described how he frequently dealt with racism as a child. Patrons stared when his family would walk into a restaurant. Friends were not allowed to come over to play after their parents had met his father. Kids called him names at school. His current experiences were not much better. At bars, with acquaintances and coworkers, he had learned to be on guard. “Invariably, they make racist jokes and throw the N-word around,” he said. Joe articulated how much he automatically expected rejection and dreaded having to “out” himself under hostile circumstances. He also hinted that the previous two therapists had empathized with his childhood but minimized his more recent experiences.

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