Examining therapist effects in relation to clients' race-ethnicity and gender: An intersectionality approach

Women and Men of Color experience racism in unique and complex ways, just as White Women and Women of Color experience unique forms of sexism (i.e., gendered racism). Traditional analyses of therapists' cultural competence, broadly defined, have yet to examine the effect of intersectionality on the processes and outcomes of psychotherapy. Although previous research suggests that therapists differ in their effectiveness with Racial-Ethnic Minority (REM) clients, no study has examined therapist effects in terms of the intersectionality of clients' race-ethnicity and gender. This study applied an intersectionality framework to test therapist effects due to clients' race-ethnicity and gender. Data for this study consisted of 415 clients treated by 16 therapists. Results indicated that therapists differed in their ability to produce changes in symptom-defined psychological distress as a function of clients' intersecting identities of race-ethnicity and gender. Clinical implications and future research are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).