Deliberate practice exercises provide trainees and students opportunities to develop a more multicultural, intersectional approach to psychotherapy and hone their own personal therapeutic style.
 
These exercises present role-playing scenarios in which two trainees act as a client and a clinician, switching back and forth under the guidance of a supervisor. The clinician improvises appropriate and authentic responses to client statements organized into three difficulty levels—beginner, intermediate, and advanced—that reflect common client questions and concerns.
 
Each of the first 12 exercises focuses on a single skill, such as developing cultural self-awareness and cultural humility, exploring cultural implications and explanations of clients’ concerns, responding to resistance, and repairing culturally based ruptures in the working alliance. A comprehensive mock therapy exercise follows in which these essential skills are brought together into a single multicultural therapy session.
 
Step-by-step instructions guide participants through the exercises, identify criteria for mastering each skill, and explain how to monitor and adjust difficulty. Guidelines to help trainers and trainees get the most out of training are also provided.

These exercises present role-playing scenarios in which two trainees act as a client and a clinician, switching back and forth under the guidance of a supervisor.

Series Preface
Tony Rousmaniere and Alexandre Vaz
Acknowledgments
Part I. Overview and Instructions
Chapter 1. Introduction and Overview of Deliberate Practice and Multicultural Therapy
Chapter 2. Instructions for the Multicultural Therapy Deliberate Practice Exercises
Part II. Deliberate Practice Exercises for Multicultural Therapy Skills
Exercises for Beginner Multicultural Therapy Skills
Exercise 1. Therapist Self-Awareness: Cultural Humility I
Exercise 2. Assessing Client Expectations
Exercise 3. Reflecting Content Through a Cultural Lens
Exercise 4. Inquiring About Identity: Cultural Opportunities I
Exercises for Intermediate Multicultural Therapy Skills
Exercise 5. Working With Emotions in Context
Exercise 6. Maintaining a Not-Knowing Stance: Cultural Humility II
Exercise 7. Inquiring About Cultural Implications of the Problem: Cultural Opportunities II
Exercise 8. Acknowledging Therapist Limitations
Exercises for Advanced Multicultural Therapy Skills
Exercise 9. Gathering Information About Safety Concerns
Exercise 10. Talking About Sex and Success
Exercise 11. Responding to Resistance and Ambivalence
Exercise 12. Repairing Ruptures Due to Microaggressions
Comprehensive Exercise
Exercise 13. Mock Multicultural Therapy Sessions
Part III. Strategies for Enhancing the Deliberate Practice Exercises
Chapter 3. How to Get the Most Out of Deliberate Practice: Additional Guidance for Trainers and Trainees
Appendix A. Difficulty Assessments and Adjustments
Appendix B. Deliberate Practice Diary Form
Appendix C. Sample Multicultural Therapy Syllabus With Embedded Deliberate Practice Exercises
References
Index
About the Authors

Jordan Harris, PhD, LMFT-S, LPC-S, a former American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy (AAMFT) Minority Fellow and AAMFT Minority Fellowship Mentor. He’s consulted on various projects around deliberate practice and issues of diversity. Currently he works in private practice and runs the blog www.jordanthecounselor.com, dedicated to all things deliberate practice and practice building.
 
Joel Jin, PhD, is an assistant professor of clinical psychology at Seattle Pacific University (SPU). At SPU's clinical psychology PhD program, he teaches graduate courses on foundational clinical interventions for psychotherapy, brief psychodynamic therapy, psychopathology, psychological assessment, and understanding cultural differences and diversity. His research lab investigates the impact of perfectionism and stigma on mental health and wellbeing. His research team tests how mindfulness-based and compassion-focused interventions can help students of the global majority thrive.
 
Sophia Hoffman, PhD, is the Assistant Program Director and the Director of Clinical Training at the combined School-Clinical Child PsyD Program at Ferkauf Graduate School of Psychology at Yeshiva University. Dr. Hoffman works with children, adolescents, and their families at Lifespan Therapists of Brooklyn. She specializes in working with challenging behaviors in early childhood and consulting with parents about how those behaviors affect school experiences. Dr. Hoffman has extensive experience helping families manage childhood trauma and the subsequent challenging behaviors expressed at home and at school. Cultural humility is at the center of her practice.
 
Selina Phan is a doctoral candidate in the School-Clinical Child Psychology Program at Ferkauf School of Psychology. She received a dual bachelor's degree in Psychology and Behavior & Health from Boston University. As a home visitor, Selina provided community-based case management and parent training services to low-income families with children from birth to 5 years old. Her clinical interests are in childhood anxiety, depression, ADHD, trauma, and parent management.
 
Tracy A. Prout, PhD, is associate professor of psychology at the Ferkauf Graduate School of Psychology at Yeshiva University. She teaches evidence-based psychodynamic psychotherapy in the School-Clinical Child Combined Doctoral Program, supervises advanced graduate students in the psychodynamic psychotherapy practicum, and leads the psychodynamic psychotherapy lab at Ferkauf. Dr. Prout is principal investigator for several studies related to Regulation Focused Psychotherapy for Children (RFP-C) and supervises all graduate research assistants who work on these projects. Dr. Prout coleads IMPACT Psychological Services, an integrative, group private practice, with locations in Beacon and Mamaroneck, New York serving children, teens, families and adults.
 
Tony Rousmaniere, PsyD, is cofounder and Program Director of Sentio Institute. He provides workshops, webinars, and clinical training and supervision around the world. He is the author/coeditor of six books on deliberate practice and psychotherapy training and two book series: The Essentials of Deliberate Practice (APA Books) and Advanced Therapeutics, Clinical and Interpersonal Skills (Elsevier). In 2017, he published the widely cited article in The Atlantic Monthly, “What Your Therapist Doesn’t Know.” Dr. Rousmaniere supports the open-data movement and publishes clinical outcome data at https://drtonyr.com/. He was awarded the Early Career Award by the Society for the Advancement of Psychotherapy.
 
Alexandre Vaz, PhD, is cofounder and Chief Academic Officer of Sentio Institute. He provides deliberate practice workshops and clinical training and supervision around the world. Dr. Vaz is the author/coeditor of four books on deliberate practice and psychotherapy training and two book series: The Essentials of Deliberate Practice (APA Books) and Advanced Therapeutics, Clinical and Interpersonal Skills (Elsevier). He has held multiple committee roles for the Society for the Exploration of Psychotherapy Integration (SEPI) and the Society for Psychotherapy Research (SPR). Dr. Vaz is founder and host of “Psychotherapy Expert Talks,” an acclaimed interview series with distinguished psychotherapists and researchers.Multicultural competence is composed of attitudes, knowledge, and skills. But the field has been less adept at equipping therapists with the necessary multicultural skills than it has in addressing attitudes and knowledge.This essential addition to the field not only identifies core multicultural skills but also provides an effective mechanism for helping therapists develop them.This book is jam-packed with examples in which trainees can learn firsthand how to make use of cultural opportunities during therapy, regardless of theoretical orientation. The deliberate practice framework for working with these opportunities results in trainees experientially learning what it means to take a culturally humble perspective, and thereby begin to develop their own cultural comfort. The experiential focus throughout makes the learning come alive and leads to greater authenticity.The right book at the right time! This book captures the important shift that has occurred in the training of multiculturalism—from gaining multicultural competence to developing a multicultural orientation that focuses on ongoing personal and professional development. True to the foundation of Deliberate Practice, and based in their scholarly expertise, Harris et al. offer practical “simulators” or mock therapy sessions that mimic actual therapeutic encounters or events focused on essential multicultural therapy skills.

Professional. Students. Graduate level students, supervisors, postgraduate training, continuing education programs; practicing therapists who want to further develop their technical skills in multicultural therapy.

It is the emphasis on not only the “why” but the “how” we as clinicians and clinical supervisors can provide culturally affirming care and training that sets this book apart from others on multicultural therapy.