ABSTRACT
Case conceptualization and treatment planning are clinical judgment tasks essential to mental health professionals’ roles (Eells & Lombart, 2003; Eells, Lombart, Kendjelic, Turner, & Lucas, 2005). Case conceptualization requires clinicians to interpret diagnostic information, client history, anticipated process dynamics, and other salient issues into their treatment decisions and goals (Falvey, 2001). Case conceptualization also offers therapists the opportunity to rely on existing psychotherapeutic theory and research to guide their developing understanding of clients’ needs and experiences (Meier, 1999). In addition, this exercise is an information-processing task in which new knowledge structures interface with existing heuristics to synthesize newer and more accurate clinical conceptualizations (Mayfield, Kardash, & Kivlighan, 1999). In light of the increasing cultural diversity of the United States (U.S. Census Bureau, 2004), mental health professionals’ ability to recognize, integrate, and synthesize racial–cultural information into conceptualizations of the complex precipitating factors of clients’ concerns is paramount to these clinicians’ delivery of culturally competent mental health services (Constantine & Ladany, 2000; Roysircar, 2004).
