Guest editor's introduction

The last issue of Psychotherapy that focused on this topic was published over 20 years ago (1985). Since then, the field has witnessed considerable growth and development, and we intended the special issue to reflect that growth. This special issue celebrates the study of culture, race, and ethnicity in the context of psychotherapy. In the call for papers, our goal was to identify quality conceptual and empirical papers that addressed how to integrate cultural, racial, and ethnic factors in psychotherapy. We were particularly interested in articles that would move beyond the admonishment of the field for greater cultural sensitivity to actually advancing our understanding of the process and outcome of psychotherapy where culture, race, and ethnicity play a central role. The response has been most encouraging. We were quite pleased with not only the number of submissions but also the range of conceptual perspectives, the levels of analyses, and the different backgrounds of the clients/patients under study. We believe that the diversity of approaches speaks well for this growing area of theory and research. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved).