This book highlights
the application of Helms’ racial identity theory to psychological
interventions. The descriptions of cases reveal how experienced
mental health professionals assess the statuses of their client(s),
dial with the recurring dynamics that can prevent racial identity
development, and exert positive changes in these interventions.
These professionals illustrate how they attempt to resolve the status
dilemmas of people who seed their processional services. These are
the dilemmas that prevent individuals, family members, or group
members from overcoming their problems in living; supervisees from
effectively treating their clients; teachers of inner-city schools
from being crushed under the weight of despair and poor resources;
and organizational leaders form being overwhelmed by the ravages
of an ill-functioning system.
The professional’s ability to assess and treat the whole
person, group, or organization is essential to his or her role as
a help provider. His or her ability to target interventions that
take into account the totality of experience is the basis for effective
treatment. The descriptions contained in this book reflect how practitioners
treat entire entities rather than a singular contributing aspect
of identity or functioning. However, because of our desire to emphasize
racial factors, these cases may not provide complete accounts of
all the factors that influence distress or concern in these clients,
especially those factors tried to other identity issues, such as
culture, gender, and class. We do believe, however, that we have
made some attempts to discuss these very relevant issues even though
their coverage is not extensive or in sufficient detail.
This book is intended primarily for practitioners but can also
be useful to researchers and graduate students in applied mental
health and related helping fields. It can be especially valuable
in graduate level courses in social work, psychiatric nursing, psychiatry,
counselor education, and psychology, as well as teaching, public
administration, and organizational leadership. However we strongly
urge those instructors who adopt this book to exercise preparatory
measures before they incorporate it into course instruction because
the discomfort that often surrounds learning about race can cause
some people to interpret the written material incorrectly. A graduate-level
version of either the course described by Tatum (1992) or by White
(1994) would provide an ideal frame for using this book. For those
who read the book outside of the classroom some prior reading may
e necessary in order to take steps toward integrating the theory
into practice. Many of the references that are cited in the first
three chapters may be especially helpful in making this learning
more profitable.
We also hope that the book will be of benefit to those who are
pessimistic about the likelihood that positive race-related change
can occur within their professional relationships. Hence, we hope
that the book can inspire a sense of optimism to anyone who has
come to believe that the damaging effects of race are beyond reparation.
With regard to the lack of attention to race in the practice of
psychotherapy and the hopelessness often associated with this practice
Hooks (1993) noted that:
Traditional therapy, mainstream psychoanalytical practices, often
do not consider “race” an important issue, and as a
result do not adequately address the mental-health dilemmas of Black
people. Yet these dilemmas are very real. They persist in our daily
life and they undermine our capacity to live fully and joyfully.
They even prevent us from participating in organized collective
struggle aimed at ending domination and transforming society. (P.
15).
This element of self- and racial-empowerment is by no means the
cornerstone solely of Black improvement. Successful interventions
that take into account racial factors as aspects of the totality
are essential to the improvement of all racial beings and, importantly,
society as a whole.
The reader will find that there are no quick fixes offered in
this book. One feature of deliberating effective interventions is
the intervener; the ultimate achievement of facility and expertise
in the application of racial identity development theory requires
that the intervener himself or herself transcend these developmental
statuses. It is because of this knowledge that we consider the analyses
and interventions described by our guest practitioners-scholars
as nothing short of remarkable. Their descriptions show that they
have acquired considerable levels of competence in their knowledge
of human behavior and in their ability to facilitate meaningful
change. What also makes these contributors especially remarkable
is that they have resoled much of their own early racial identity
status dilemmas and have worked doggedly on strengthening their
emergent advanced status schemata. Significantly, their personal
diligence has assisted them in their professional work. They have
exercised intelligence insuring their advanced status sensibilities
to guide them in determining the needs of their clients and in developing
liberating, healing, and instructive interventions.
These practitioners-scholars also understand that change is often
slow, and for some, change will be exceedingly difficult. However,
their skillful practice of converging theories allows them to capably
assess the personal readiness of their clients and then provoke
movement that is within the clients’ potential and forceful
enough to challenge firmly established and intricately woven world
views.
This book is divided into four sections. The first three chapters
lay the groundwork for the case documents. We begin chapter 1 with
a discussion on race and how its existence continues to manifest
in present-day society despite the oft-expressed desire for harmony
and equality. Chapter 2 provides an overview of what we refer to
hereafter as the Helms’ racial identity theory, which is a
combination of four conceptualizations. The third chapter completes
this section, with instruction on how racial identity development
is elicited in the context of the helping relationship. As can be
seen in the application chapters, the selection of tools for facilitating
development in racial identity is multiply determined. We believe
that the diversity of characteristic s that lead to change, such
as client and therapist characteristics and process issues, will
provide the necessary illustration in enlivening the theory to actual
interventions.
Parts One, Two, and Three are composed of the application chapters.
Part One includes interventions that occur on a dyadic level: Three
of the chapters in this part provide case descriptions and analyses
of psychotherapeutic alliances, and a fourth chapter illustrates
a supervisor-supervisee experienced using Helm’s racial identity
theory. Part Two includes four chapters that show the use of the
theory within groups, with chapter 11 examining the use of this
theory with Bowen’s family systems approach in working with
a family client. The final part of the book gives illustrations
of racial identity theory as it is applied in organizational and
institutional settings. The final two chapters (14 and 15) are the
most experimental yet cutting-edge works in the book because, although
actual interventions were not conducted, the authors analyze organizational
and institutional phenomena with the goal of stimulating change
and merging conceptual approaches. The authors of these chapters
also propose ways to intervene consistent with the strategies generally
applied by the other contributing authors.
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