| The Influence of Race and Racial Identity in Psychotherapy Conventional wisdom has it that race and racial identity are, at best, marginal factors in personality development. In light of the fact that in many cultures race is the ultimate measure of inclusion or exclusion, this view seems about as sensible as the claim that dietary habits have little or nothing to do with physical development. Equally strange is the belief held by many schools of thought that race is important only when a patient brings it into the therapeutic process, and if the patient happens to be a person of color, the issue of race is merely a ploy for avoiding more critical intrapsychic issues.
In this groundbreaking book, Robert T. Carter stands conventional wisdom on its head and elevates race to the position of prominence it deserves to occupy in modern psychological thought. With a wealth of empirical evidence to support his claims, he clearly demonstrates the decisive role that race plays in personality development and the powerful influence it has on the therapeutic process. Just as importantly, he presents the first Racially Inclusive Model of Psychotherapy, a rigorous conceptual framework which affords clinicians a deeper awareness of how racial issues affect their dealings with patients and a means of integrating that knowledge into their practices. The book begins with a critical overview, in which the author clearly shows that race has always been excluded from theories of personality development; he then explores the shortcomings inherent in the tendency to substitute ethnicity and culture for race. In the following discussion of race and personality, Carter presents models of racial identity for all racial groups, and offers numerous case studies which help validate the notion of variable psycho-social resolutions within racial groups, where each resolution functions as an independent world view. |
