ABSTRACT
This chapter provides information on the meeting of the therapist and client. The assessment factor, the individual’s type of psychological mindedness, includes all the ways individuals conceptualize or make an assessment about their emotional state. This would indicate whether they had a choice about, or understood, the referral, whether they attribute the distress to biological or psychological factors, whether they manifest their difficulties/distress bodily or verbally, and, generally, how these fit within the client’s sociocultural construct. The relationship to one’s culture can be used as an indication of how much the client accepts or rejects culture, and, therefore, how much they will engage in the therapeutic process with a therapist of another culture. The therapist has the delicate stance of remaining professional, but being emotionally connected. The assessment process is important as it gives the client a taste of what therapy will be like.
