Personal Reaction to Readings The purpose of this paper is to wri

Pinderhughes, E. (1989). Understanding race, ethnicity, and power: The key to efficacy in clinical practice. NY: The Free Press.

I found this chapter very comprehensive and well-written. As a foundation for discussing the competencies needed in considering sociocultural, ethnic and race issues in clinical assessment, Pinderhughes first summarized the general competencies needed for effective intervention in clinical work with diverse cultural/ethnic groups. She then noted the association between these competencies and the competencies needed to conduct a meaningful assessment. Thus, this chapter of the book was neatly tied in with all that was written previously.

Pinderhughes also delineated all of the cultural, ethnic and racial considerations the clinician must be aware of as she assesses the client's problem. As a guide and a help to overcoming one's own biases in the assessment, Pinderhughes listed seven key questions which counselors should ask and answer.

What was especially good about these questions is that they were sufficiently broad in scope to include not only the cultural and ethnic issues that might be involved in the problem but also the general psychoemotional issues. Further, some of the questions allowed for general psychosocial and environmental concerns.

In her discussion of the competencies needed for asses

. . .
e clinician working with clients who share her cultural background, e.g. problems of over-identification. Strategies for dealing with clients from both different cultures and similar or the same culture are provided. Pinderhughes cautions clinicians to pay particular attention to problems centering around clients' cultural identify. She cites people of color as being especially vulnerable to this problem and, in addition, especially vulnerable to any cultural biases on the part of counselors. The scope of this chapter, as can be seen from the presented discussion, is very broad. The one flaw in the chapter is a tendency for sub-headings to inadequately demarcate the material contained within the title. For example, under the subheading, "Significance of Strengths and Adaptive Behavior," Pinderhughes also discussed a good many other topics including clinicians' problems working with the culturally similar, client cultural vulnerabilities to clinicians stereotypes and so forth. Perhaps if there had been more phrases connecting these points of discussion specifically to the subheading, it would have been easier to understand the logic of the subheading. Based on the chapters preceding this section of the text, I would say t
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