Brief Therapy with a Grieving Grad Student

This chapter examines the confluence of bereavement, cultural competence, and incest as experienced in the brief treatment of a Cambodian-born clinical psychology graduate student. Paradigms for end-setting in short-term therapy, approaches to grieving, the complications of culturally different values and a history of sexual abuse by the deceased are described.[Article copies available for a fee from The Haworth Document Delivery Service: 1-800-342-9678. E-mail address: Website: © 2002 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved.] This chapter examines the confluence of bereavement, cultural competence, and incest as experienced in the brief treatment of a Cambodian-born clinical psychology graduate student. Paradigms for end-setting in short-term therapy, approaches to grieving, the complications of culturally different values and a history of sexual abuse by deceased are described. It presents a case of brief therapy with a young woman graduate student, herself a clinician-in-training. Treatment entailed a confluence of time-limited treatment, bereavement, a pair of conflicted relationships, and a challenge to cultural competence to help the Asian-born client. The three categories are applied in temporal aspects: length, frequency, and duration. Length refers to the amount of time spent with the client in each session. Frequency refers to the interval between sessions. The duration calls for attention to the overall time expected to complete the therapy, and that, too, is a fluid feature of the model, allowing for early expectations to be shared, then adjusted as needs dictate over time.