Working with African American Couples and Utilizing Cultural Humility to Go Beyond a Eurocentric Understanding of Attachment

In this episode, Paul discusses how his seeking connection with other African-American clinicians in the Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy (EFT) community, in order to translate the EFT approach into his and his colleagues experiences with their African-American clients, lead him to write his book, Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy with African American Couples: Love Heals. He discussed how attachment in African cultures and other collectivist cultures are different from our traditional sense of child attaches to mother, and in recent years, child also attaches to father. Instead, he discussed how in a more collectivist culture, child attaches to community, and other villages may be the responsive attachment figure while the mother is working on the farm, or the grandparent, and how this was extended as African Americans were brought to the United States in slavery, families were broken up, and others took in children who were not there and children attached with the adults they were enslaved with. Paul discusses working with couples, within an attachment framework, and how cultural humility is a significant aspect of the work with others, whether of a similar race or culture, or different, as his cultural experience and racial identity can be a different experience than one or both partners of a couple he might be working with who are also Black. He discussed the three levels of cultural humanity, which is knowing about general issues that affect the group that one is working with, the diversity of experiences within that group, and ultimately, the self as therapist, and the therapists’ cultural experiences and how that impacts their thinking. His goal in writing his book was to promote clinicians needing more information and understanding of culture, and adjusting clinically to the realities of unique stresses and threats to African American love. Paul Guillory, PhD is a psychologist, and Associate Professor at the University of California, Berkeley in the Clinical Science Program, Psychology Department. He is a certified Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy therapist and certified EFT supervisor, and an EFT Trainer-in-Training. Paul is the author of the book, Emotionally Focused Therapy with African American Couples: Love Heals, and is the former chairperson of the Northern California Community of Emotionally Focused Therapy. Paul was the psychological consultant to the Oakland Raiders professional football team and the National Football League for 14 years, has been a consultant to the Sacramento Kings professional basketball team, and is a selected provider for the National Basketball Players Association. He has also served as Director of the Center for Family Counseling in Oakland California for 10 years, and has been in private practice in Oakland, California for over 30 years.