COLLECTIVISTIC AND INDIVIDUALISTIC CLIENTS AND THERAPY

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Not. Today, we're going to be looking at individualism versus collectivism.
Individualistic cultures prioritize autonomy, personal achievement, and self expression, while
collectivistic cultures emphasize interdependence, social harmony, and group obligations. These
orientations influence thinking, emotion, regulation, motivation, attribution, communication, and identity,

(00:21):
and you, as a clinician have to adapt to treatment
to fit the client's cultural worldview. If you're in the US,
it's become pretty diverse now in certain states, if you're
in California, it's pretty diverse in certain areas like Los Angeles,
San Diego. So it's really important to understand the difference
between individualism and collectivism. Cultures are not monolithic, and either
are people. It really matters whether they're first generation second generation.

(00:45):
That's going to give us a lot of insight. So
let's look at some of these topics a little closer.
So individualism, again is the self as autonomous. This is
found in the US, parts of the US at least,
is the main ideas in the US as well as Canada,
Germany and other countries. Individual individualism emphasizes personal goals over

(01:09):
group goals, self reliance and independence, identity, defined by internal
traits and not the group role. So success is personal,
failure is personal, and people are encouraged to be yourself,
stand out and speak your truth. Collectivism, though, is the
self is interconnected, and this has seen a lot and

(01:30):
it's still at East Asian countries, Latin American, African, and
Middle Eastern cultures. Collectivism focuses on family or group roles
above personal desires. Obligations to the group, especially family elders
or community identities tied to roles and relationships and not
to internal traits. You'll look at duty and social cohesion

(01:50):
that are prioritized, and even the harmony in the family.
The goal is not self expression but appropriate expression. This
is really important because we are seeing a lot of
rational differences people going coming from countries from East Asia
or Middle East coming to the US, for instance, and Canada.
I've heard clients can talk about it too, and the

(02:12):
children are more into the individualistic mindset while the parents
are in the collectivistic mindset, and this causes a lot
of conflict in the family. Switching over, we go to
cognitive style analytic versus holistic. Analytic thinking is common in
individualistic cultures focuses on objects in isolation, categoryical reasoning, and
linear logic, so you can think here a lot of

(02:32):
the Greek philosophy and we as Western students describing a
fish tank focuses on the fish itself, at goldfish moving fast,
while in collectivistic or holistic thinking and collectivistic cultures, a
lot of times what they're looking at look at the
goldfish swimming near a rock with other fish, so they
emphasize context and relationships and field dependence. These styles influence

(02:57):
clinical interpretation, so Western clients may ice latest symptom that
I get hungry, I get hungry, I'm hungry, I get angry,
while collectivistic clients will frame it differently. They'll look at
when I disappoint my mother, I feel tension, So it's
the relationship and how that is interacting. Emotion expression is

(03:17):
also different. In individualistic cultures, they promote expressing emotion to
a certain needs or authenticity authenticity like I felt disrespected,
so I spoke up. In collectivistic cultures, restraint is a
sign of maturity, not repression. Direct expressions of anger may
be seen as disruptive or selfish. Even therapist should not
mislabel emotional control of suppression or pathological, it just may

(03:41):
reflect adaptive cultural behavior. In addition, is motivation. Self enhancement
for individualism focuses on strength, uniqueness, and success, and therapists
can Therapy can boost confidence and reframe failure and the
collectivistic mindset. Though it's self improvement focusing on reducing shortcomings
and improving relationships to others. A client may not want

(04:03):
to praise, but see constructive feedback instead that helps them
better fulfill group roles. Attributions is also important, so dispositional
versus situational individualistic orientation. People tend to explain behavior based
on internal traits. In other words, if somebody doesn't do
well or isn't doing something, they may blame the person
as being he failed or she failed because they're lazy.

(04:26):
This is known as the fundamental attribution area, underestimating situational
context and making it more dispositional an attribute. Collectivistic mindset's
a little different. She failed because she's under family pressure.
Right now, there's that relationship dynamic again. Therapist should avoid
pathologizing what maybe contextual distress and listen for relational causality

(04:48):
in their clients. It's really an important way to think
When you're a therapist, communication style direct communication, individualism, say
what you mean, assertiveness is value, while in collect community
messages in tone, context or implication, speaking plainly may be
viewed as disrespectful or confrontational. Others may say speaking plainly
in reality as being more diplomatic. Language can be complicated.

(05:13):
Silence may also convey respect, thoughtfulness of dissent, and therapy
direct questioning may need to be softened. Clients may respond
with deference and that agreement. So you have to understand
how your client views communication self concept independent versus interdependent
Independent self is traits, choices, and identity. I'm creative, ambitious,

(05:35):
and logical. Interdependent self for collectivism as roles, relationships, and
social position, I'm a daughter or a team member and
a friend. Identity changes beyond a therapy that assumes the
client is bounded autonomous self may clash for clients who
understand themselves through relationships and obligations. So understand where you
stand and where they stand within culture variation. But not

(05:58):
all members of a culture hold the same value is.
This is why it's so important to get really good
detailed information about your client. How do they view the
culture they're in the culture their family was in, how
do they view it, Because just because you're from East Asia,
there's a different a lot of different countries in East
Asia and the people in for instance, in Japan, well,

(06:19):
there's a difference between people in cities compared to rural areas,
people in different social economic classes. Gender roles will play
a role, which religions that they adhere to in the family,
generational statuses, There's a lot of factors. So within those
culture within culture variation is extremely important. Just because they
come from some of these collectivistic cultures and you're in

(06:42):
the individualistic culture, you don't't automatically assume that they adhere
to all the collectivistic mindset and may be very different,
So definitely pay attention to that. A second generation Asian
American client may oscillate between a collectivistic family norm and
an individualistic cure value, creating internal conflict and identity tension.

(07:03):
So recognizing by cultural navigation as part of culturally competent
care again therapeutic alliance is going to be important building trust.
Clients from collectivists backgrounds may initially defer to the therapist's authority,
so you need to ask decisions are how our decisions
are made in their family. Collaborative or autonomous treatment goals

(07:25):
focus on self actualization boundaries, setting our emotional expression for
individualistic ones. For clients that are collectivistic, look at role clarity,
relational repair, or coping with duty based stress, stress, family
dynamics and collectivistic cultures. Families often central to identity. Interventions
must include or consider family influence. While Western models of

(07:45):
individuation may feel threatening and not empowering culturally based value conflicts.
Clients taught between cultures may struggle with a culturative stress,
intergenerational tension, or dual identity conflict. For instance, a client
wants to pursue art, their immigrant family expects a medical career.
Therapy may focus on integration and not separation. Next time,

(08:06):
we look at multicultural and cross cultural issues in psychological assessments,
so stay tuned for the next one.