ABSTRACT
Empowering the client through therapeutic intervention means transcending subtle and unintended adjustment to the disabling, dysfunctional conventions of the "dominant culture." It means assisting the client to validate his or her sense of self-efficacy and ability to productively confront and dismantle disabling events. This chapter argues that traditional concepts of psychological intervention ignore the cultural and contextual specificity of black families and their members and, thus, are inadequate to serve the black clients. The slave legacy of blacks' experience of being poor, oppressed, and marginalized has a sturdy base in American history. Attitudes and attending behaviours of cultural superiority also have a long history. A. Kardiner and L. Ovesey's conclusion about black behaviour was based on their observations of a small sample of black psychotherapy patients in a Harlem hospital. The chapter also argues that empowerment of the black family can occur through empowering of its members.
