“What country are you from originally?” A conversation analysis of black clients' and black therapists' talk during therapeutic encounters

Black individuals, historically engage less and have less positive outcomes from therapy than other populations. In the context of an increasingly multicultural society, research examining the ways in which clients of different ethnic minorities experience counselling and therapy is prevalent. Previous research has explored at length, barriers impacting Black people’s engagement with therapy, as well as the different dynamics in cross-cultural encounters. However, what occurs in the sessions of Black clients with therapists who are racially similar to them has been explored far less than other areas. The focus of this current study was to examine the moment-to-moment encounters in therapy dyads of Black therapists and Black clients. As well as, examine how race and culture is made relevant in these encounters and the multicultural approaches used by Black therapists to navigate these incidents. Eleven therapy sessions were recorded with a total time of 10 hours and 38 minutes. The researcher drew on microanalytic approaches, including Conversation Analysis, Membership Category Analysis and Discursive Psychology to analyse the data. The analysis highlighted four distinct findings: a) racial and cultural identities are drawn upon in talk both implicitly and explicitly, b) therapists make self-disclosures specifically to do with race and culture to both normalise and demonstrate cultural awareness and sensitivity, c) Blackness is also at times drawn upon as a distinct tool with Black clients. The key contributions to counselling psychology are that therapists can use the ‘Self’ with Black clients more relationally, that cultural humility and opportunities can impact these dialogues, and transform the way Blackness in interaction is understood.

Name dc:type.qualificationname

Professional Doctorate

Level dc:type.qualificationlevel

Doctoral

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

University of Wolverhampton

Year dc:date.issued

2024

Author dc:creator

• Lawal, Temitope

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Wesson, Caroline

• black
• blackness
• therapists
• clients
• counselling
• talk
• culture
• conversation analysis
• self-disclosure
• cultural humility

Statement dc:rights

• Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

Licence

• https://wlv.dspace7.openrepository.com/bitstreams/b48a0638-90ab-462b-aa08-9e040b372887/download