Religious Leaders, Successful Adaptation

Some mental health professionals identify their religious affiliations or beliefs in their advertising, on their cards, or in their informed consent paperwork. Others develop specific specialties in areas dealing with religious concerns . Although a generic clinical interview includes religion as an aspect of the whole person, the interviewer must gently bring the dialogue back to problem areas and sources of distress. Also, treatment planning may certainly include consultation with religious leaders or authorities .

390 Interviewing Special PopulationsTHE IMPORTANCE OF CONTEXT Interviewing in a multicultural setting involves a delicate balance between awareness and understanding of broad cultural group characteristics and the individual internalization and expression of those characteristics. As unique cultural beings, people must interact with an environment that exhibits its own cultural qualities and requires certain qualities of individuals. For example, a Mexican American student quickly learns that mastery of the English language is required to be successful in public schools. This is a contextual requirement that requires adaptation for success. In the process of adapting, the student makes many decisions about other aspects of his or her cultural background that either ?t, don’t ?t, are useful or not useful, in this new context. The essential task of the interview becomes understanding the uniqueness of ethnocultural individuals within their various contexts. As Swartz Kulstad and Martin state, “. . . the ?eld is in need of a functional method to assess the interactive in?uences of all three levels-universal, group and individual-and to determine how these in?uences have an impact on the individual’s successful adaptation to his or her psychosocial environment” .