Hybridizing This strategy involves blending elements from two or more cultural who celebrates both Día de los Muertos and Halloween might create a puppet show incorporating elements from both traditions. The play your Latine and American identities.” Similarly, a child may explore the hybridizing experience in the play kitchen by combining a meal they associate with their culture with one they recognize from the dominant culture. A Korean child might add special sauces used at home to a mac and cheese dish. The play therapist can support this development with responses such as, “You decided to make a Koren style of mac and cheese!” or “You decided to combine a meal you saw at school and one you eat at home!”
Immigrants and those who grew up with immigrant
families are less likely to demonstrate help-seeking behaviors and tend to possess more stigma toward
mental illness as compared to their White-American peers...
Working with Parents Research demonstrates that engaging parents within the play therapy process increases client outcomes (Line et al., 2023) and can be especially important for children who identify as immigrants. According to a study of immigrant perceptions of therapy by Rogers-Sirin and colleagues (2015), participants believed that counselors lacked cultural sensitivity when they assumed that participants knew how therapy should proceed, faced microaggressions and discrimination within the therapeutic process, and found it harmful when therapists assumed Thus, play therapists should provide parents with a detailed description expectations for parent involvement, and the therapist and client role in treatment in the initial intake appointment. Additionally, play therapists must be mindful to avoid assumptions about cultural background including faulty assumptions about child rearing, pathologizing cultural differences, or confounding cultural concerns with the presenting assuming knowledge, and recognizing that every cultural experience to approach culture in an appropriate way and demonstrates humility and an openness to learning about the family rather than leading with implicit biases.
18 | PLAYTHERAPY December 2024 |
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Immigrants and those who grew up with immigrant families are less likely to demonstrate help-seeking behaviors and tend to possess more stigma toward mental illness as compared to their White- American peers (Bismar & Wang, 2021; Eisenberg et al., 2009), thus, the intake appointment who is aware that they are seeking counseling and caregivers and may lead to a more holistic understanding of the external pressures the parent may be facing due to the child’s presenting concern.
Play therapists should use the initial parent consultation to explore family their reason for migrating to better understand if their move for further exploration of the child client’s experiences that may be level of acculturation are factors that should be explored in the initial intake as they provide a more holistic understanding of the child and their experiences. Lastly, play therapists should explore pre-and post- opportunities and social status, their community factors, and the familiarity with the system and infrastructure of the country to which they immigrated.
Developing Play Therapist’s Cultural Humility
and Cultural Comfort Because it is not always possible to match clients and counselors by ethnicity, therapists’ cultural competence is more strongly correlated to strong client outcomes than shared ethnicity (Rogers-Sirin et al., 2015). Moreover, being well-versed in the experiences of immigrants not only proves useful when working with immigrant populations, but also in working with successive generations of immigrants (Bismar & Wang, 2021). Thus, the therapist’s cultural humility and cultural comfort is paramount.
In immigrant populations, help-seeking behaviors are often limited, so play therapists must consider the implications of referring clients to other providers. The initial phone call may have been an arduous task for families, therefore it is crucial to approach referrals thoughtfully. Rather than referring clients to providers with a shared identity, play therapists consider seeking continuing education training where they may lack understanding or have limited experiences. Furthermore, play therapists consider attending trainings that push their thinking consider their own biases toward Western child-rearing practices including discipline strategies and how those may impact the therapist parent relationship (Line, 2022). Last but not least, play and avoid viewing assimilation as the ultimate goal for the children they work with.
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