Cultural Context, Family Therapist Salvador Minuchin

In this case, it was obvious after conducting a thorough interview that the client was behaving in an unusual and disturbing manner. His behavior was rationally unjusti?able , statistically infrequent , disturbing , and maladaptive .

Now we are left with a ?nal question regarding the justi?ability of the man’s behavior. Namely, is his behavior culturally justi?ed or sanctioned? Think about this standard. Can you think of any cultural situations that might adequately justify this man’s rather controlling behaviors? We take up the issue of judging mental disorders in their cultural context to a greater extent in Individual and Cultural Highlight 6.2 and Chapter 13.

An Overview of the Interview Process Exploring Society’s Contributions to Client Problems That client problems must be viewed in their social and cultural context is an unarguable fact. Articulating this point for families in particular, Goldenberg and Goldenberg describe the discoveries made by renowned family therapist Salvador Minuchin .

As Minuchin and his coworkers began to accumulate research and clinical data and to rede?ne the problem in family terms, successful interventions involving the entire family became possible. Later research expanded to include asthmatic children with severe, recurrent attacks as well as anorectic children; the additional data con?rmed for Minuchin that the locus of pathology was in the context of the family and not simply in the af?icted individual .

Minuchin argued the importance of seeing individual client symptoms from the family systems perspective. In contrast, the DSM IV TR, although including a section on cultural issues with each major diagnostic category, continues to de?ne mental disorders as residing exclusively in the individual .