This was my first book club meeting, so I was looking forward to meeting everyone, discussing the book and hearing everyone’s views. The book had been split into sections for different members to present and I was curious about how we would manage the mix of presentation and discussion. I was particularly looking forwards to the anthropological focus, and how it was related to the clinical focus.
On to the book
The book begins with a very personal introduction by the author which engages the reader. Her style of illustrating points with stories from her own life in particular throughout the book aids understanding. She describes effectively the concept of being between cultures, adrift, “not one culture nor the other”, and not accepted by one or the other.
The author describes the Multicultural Ecosystemic Comparative Approach (MECA) and refers to this throughout the book. One of her main points and perhaps motivation for writing a book in such detail on such a specific group of cultures, was not to generalise about a culture to the exclusion of other ideas.
She describes 4 key generic domains to consider as a framework when thinking about and working with families:
Journey of migration and cultural change,
Ecological context,
Family organisation,
Family life cycle.
These could be applied to many different cultures.
Although the author talks about the importance of the therapist comparing and considering their own cultural maps she does not appear to convey this for herself in the book. She talks about her own cultural map but does not relate this to herself as a therapist.
The book is presented in four main parts relating to the above four domains. Although very readable in parts, the book contains so much detail in others that it makes it heavier reading although not impossible.
The author also talks about the dangers of emphasizing similarities in different families and cultures and minimising cultural differences which may cause the therapist to fall into ethnocentrism – assuming the majority view as the standard of health.
Overall, we felt we liked the style of writing and that it reflected a Spanish style. The inclusion of personal stories meant that we as readers felt a connection with the author and the book.
We felt that the ideas could be applied to any culture
The author did give good descriptions of the differences within the different groups described, but didn’t appear to define what it meant when someone was considered to be Latino as apposed to American.
We talked about the idea that different cultures can be defined in smaller and smaller groups and get more detatched.
The author has not really contributed new ideas to systemic family therapy skills but more to the issue of culture and difference.
She did include in her conclusion the need for consideration of culture and difference to be mainstream issue for family therapists rather than just an add on - with this we all agreed.
Cathy McIver
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