Cultural competence in trauma

Abstract

The construct "Cultural competence", or some variation thereof, has unfortunately been abused to the point that it really has no clear definition and, indeed, can signify rather contrasting notions (Kirmayer 2012; Kleinman and Benson 2006; Qureshi and Eiroa-Orosa 2012; Williams 2006). Given that the point of this chapter is to apply the concept to trauma work with immigrants with the goal of improving service provision, it will simply focus on this very point and in the process explicate a model of cultural competence that it is hoped will be useful just as it is in accord with research and with overall approaches to effective clinical work with diverse patients.