The present study is the first to apply Trawalter, Richeson, and Shelton's (2009) stress and coping framework to qualitatively examine interracial interactions in initial sessions of psychotherapy. The sample included 22 dyads: 15 therapists of color administering various treatment modalities to 15 treatment-seeking non-Latino White (NLW) patients and a comparison group of 7 intraracial (NLW-NLW) dyads. In Phase 1, videorecordings of the first session of treatment were analyzed using inductive thematic analysis (TA) to describe patient and therapist behaviors. In Phase 2, a deductive TA approach was used to interpret and cluster those dyadic behaviors according to Trawalter et al.'s (2009) framework. NLW patients paired with therapists of color made more efforts to bridge differences and more often questioned the therapist's professional qualifications compared with those matched with NLW therapists. Therapists of color made more self-disclosures than NLW therapists and maintained a more formal stance, compared with NLW therapists. The deductive TA operationalized 4 of Trawalter and colleagues' (2009) coping responses within a therapeutic framework. Findings highlight the ability of therapists' of color to engage positively with their NLW patients even in the face of challenges to their expertise and credibility. (PsycINFO Database Record

Ruptures are common in any therapeutic relationship and their successful resolution is associated with positive outcomes. However, therapist and client differences with regard to power, privilege, identity, and culture increase social and cultural distance, contributing to alliance ruptures and complicating the repair process. Informed by critical race theories, cultural psychological perspectives, and relational principles, we highlight how power, privilege, identity, and culture shape the development of ruptures and thus, how analyses of these dynamics should inform the process of repair. We present an expanded critical‐cultural‐relational approach to rupture resolution that emphasizes essential skills of critical self‐awareness, wise affect, and anti‐oppressive interpersonal engagement, and extends Safran and Muran's (2000) general rupture resolution model to emphasize a critical analysis of the rupture and repair processes. We illustrate our approach through a case presentation involving a rupture in a cross‐racial dyad with themes of racism and classism.

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In this chapter, we describe the critical-cultural-relational model of rupture and repair, which builds on Safran, Muran, and colleagues' (Muran et al., 2010;Safran & Muran, 2000) classic model to explicitly contextualize ruptures within the historically and culturally constructed dynamics of power that shape all social interactions. We detail how cultural and social distance may increase the occurrence of ruptures and create challenges to repair, as well as how therapists can improve their capacity to bridge barriers to deepen client self-understanding and foster ethnocultural empathy, connection, and healing. We illustrate the approach with a case example. We conclude the chapter with reflections on how essential therapist skills of wise affect, critical self-awareness, and antioppressive interpersonal engagement may help disrupt entrenched dynamics of oppression as clinicians (imperfectly) work toward greater racial justice and equity in clinical care.Across the globe, increasing migration and mobility is bringing us in contact with more people from different cultures, belief systems, and perspectives about what is good, what is just, and what we owe each other as fellow citizens. Because humans naturally fear what is unfamiliar, we prefer to seekCopyright American Psychological Association. Not for further distribution. • Chang, Omidi, and Dunncompany with those who look, sound, and act like us (Stephan & Stephan, 1985). While understandable, our inclination for avoidance fails to provide us the experience and the tools to empathically connect with others who are different (Cameron et al., 2019;Stephan & Finlay, 1999). We struggle to understand how someone could believe what they believe, say the things they say, live the ways they live. And worse, we fail to see how systems of oppression shape each of our life trajectories and perpetuate inequities that are too easily blamed on individual choices (McNamee, 2018;Sears & Henry, 2003).Within the therapeutic context, these failures of empathy and understanding often lead to ruptures in the relationship. Safran and Muran (1996) defined a rupture as a deterioration in the therapeutic alliance or a difficulty in establishing the relationship that may be expressed through disagreements about the tasks or goals of therapy or through tensions in the affective bond between therapist and client (Bordin, 1979;Eubanks-Carter et al., 2010;Safran & Muran, 2000). Ruptures and conflicts in the relationship are unavoidable given that we can never be fully attuned to our clients; furthermore, therapeutic work necessarily involves challenging clients and helping them to navigate places of discomfort, disappointment, and anxiety in relation to others. Ruptures have been classified according to two types of markers: confrontation-for example, when the patient moves against the therapist or therapy process by expressing dissatisfaction, aggression, hostility, and so on-and withdrawal-for example, when the patient disengages or moves away from the therapist, the therapy process, or ...