Negotiating within Whiteness in Cross-Cultural Clinical Encounters

Abstract

Despite awareness in social work and related literatures that sociocultural power dynamics are reproduced in practice, there is little research on how whiteness manifests as an oppressive discourse in clinical settings. This article analyzes audio-recorded therapy sessions between white therapists and racialized immigrant clients from an urban community mental health center in Canada to explore the ways in which whiteness shapes clinical encounters. Using poststructural theories of discourse and conversation analysis, the authors examine how discursive strategies that therapists and clients use in therapy sessions produce and reify whiteness as a prominent feature of cross-cultural communication. The findings illustrate how therapists maintain whiteness as an unmarked norm in their assessment of individual development and the family life cycle and how clients respond to, negotiate with, and resist whiteness, which positions them as subordinate others in Canada. The authors conclude with a discussion of implications for practice and future research.