ABSTRACT
The intervention's assumptions about hip-hop's cultural significance stemmed from accumulated literature about hip-hop integrated strategies and culture and the geographic location of the setting and its relevance to the birth of hip-hop culture in the United States. The chapter illustrates how the integration of hip-hop integrated strategies can enhance clinical practice with homeless adults with severe and persistent mental illness using a structured system that harnesses hip-hop's core values of self and community improvement. The integration of the hip-hop group into shelter programming has influenced interactions with residents and helped facilitate positive transference between the facilitator and residents. Music was a vehicle that helped facilitate pathways to engagement and empowerment, which were priorities for residents. Empowerment in this context is focused both on person and environment. It is the individual and the community. The chapter concludes with the importance of theoretical assumptions and applications, with the practical dynamics of cultivating a therapeutic environment for residents.
