Linguistically- and Culturally-Sensitive Psychotherapy: Evaluating an Approach to Assessment and Treatment
The Centre for Clinical Research in Health (CCRH) successfully established a university- funded state-of-the-art research clinic at Concordia University (of which the principal investigator is co-founding member). The clinic is launching an evidence-based, culturally-sensitive psychotherapy program for migrants with anxiety and/or depression. This larger project provides investigators with a valuable opportunity to evaluate the effectiveness of language-sensitive mental health interventions in a real-life clinical setting.
It is therefore proposed to: (1) Integrate research tools (developed with previous Dialogue McGill funding) into the assessment battery completed by all clients completing the treatment protocol used with migrant clients at CCRH. (2) Use qualitative techniques to study video-recordings and transcripts of actual clinical sessions to study the consequences of language discordance on effective communication and treatment. (3) Use quantitative analysis techniques to test whether potential problems identified by the assessment battery are linked to problematic features of actual clinical interactions. Hypotheses are: H1: Indices related to better functioning in a given language will predict fewer in-session communication difficulties when the treatment is conducted in that language. H2: Fewer in-session communication difficulties will predict more rapid symptom improvement.
Outputs:
Unknown. (2020, May). Cultural scripts for normalcy and deviancy: A mixed-methods approach to understanding mental illness in new contexts [Presentation]. Interacting Minds Center, Aarhus, Denmark
Unknown. (2019, November). Linguistically- and Culturally-Sensitive Psychotherapy: A Proposal [Presentation]. Centre for Clinical Research in Health, Montreal, Quebec.