Promotions - Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles 2024 -

This excellent collection demonstrates the importance of cultural context in assessing and treating clients using the Collaborative/Therapeutic Assessment model. The editors present articles from six continents and 11 countries, each written by a mental health specialist from their home country. These case studies illuminate how assessment and treatment methods must respect each client's cultural experiences and must be adapted to each person's language, history, and current life circumstances. For example, the Crinali method in Italy trains immigrant women to serve as linguistic and cultural mediators at help centers and family counseling centers. In Zimbabwe, a group format is used to help children traumatized by war and privation respond to fear and anxiety using traditional symbols. Called "Singing to the Lions," the training teaches the children to respond vocally to fears that the lions create (e.g., roars). The Collaborative/Therapeutic Assessment model challenges traditional DSM diagnoses, insurance codes, and training methods to provide a more effective focus on the distress of clients with complex ethnic, racial, and trauma backgrounds. This is a valuable and unique resource for mental health specialists, training programs, and practitioners as they encounter clients from ever more diverse backgrounds.Summing Up: Highly recommended. Advanced undergraduates through faculty; professionals.