1. Objectifs

Intentions :
«To illustrate the interplay of gender, power and ethnocultural identities in clinical work, this chapter will present CCS [Cultural Consultation Service] cases seen by two South Asian origin consultants and a French-Québecois child psychiatrist (CR) trained in Canada with extensive South American and European experience.» (p. 163)

2. Méthode

Échantillon/Matériau :
«The South Asian therapists were a third-generation Indian origin, Canadian-trained child psychiatrist (JG) with clinical experience in Canada and India and a first-generation immigrant to Australia (RSM), with training and clinical experience in India, Australia and Canada as a child and family clinical psychologist. The cases we present were chosen because they show how the ethnicity and gender of the minority clinician can evoke a range of systemic, cultural and dynamic issues in work with a heterogeneous South Asian clinical population.» (p. 164)

Type de traitement des données :
Réflexion critique

3. Résumé

«The cases we have presented illustrate how, in considering issues of gender, ethnicity and power, the cultural consultant must reach beyond the dominant paradigms of mental health training to allow multiple voices and perspectives to emerge. Working with the cultural contexts of collective values and gendered hierarchies inherent to South Asia families broadens the horizon of clinical conversations and the construction of solutions. Cultural parameters must be recognized to understand the divergent perspectives of the patient, family and the institution. Acknowledging these elements provides the basis for a reflective process of inquiry, but even with ethnic matching, deliberate efforts to identify blind spots and attempts to adapt perspectives, confusion and uncertainty may remain. Cultural consultation requires an understanding that power relations in host societies and institutions interact in complex ways with the social fabric of gender and family structures from non-Western cultures. Creating secure transitional spaces within therapeutic settings allows families or individuals to rethink and renegotiate their agency, position and power in contexts of cultural change and the destabilization or hybridity of cultural norms that comes with migration.» (p. 180)