Specialized Trainings

Trailblazing New Ground: Beyond Context Multicultural Realities, EFT & Cultural Humility

Course Overview:

Although most societies are largely multicultural, this cultural multicity is not often considered relevant in models of psychotherapy. The central reasoning seems to lean toward cultural neutrality or inferred model generalizability. That is, as major psychotherapy models focus on the essence human social/psychological functioning, their clinical interventions target common developmental and distress factors of people. This is true of EFT with respect to attachment & emotional science which are seen as hard-wired to human nature & bodies.

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A new era of integrating multicultural matters has been emerging adjacent to, but largely outside of major models of therapy. This clinical focus has been towards interventions that break the negative legacies of the multicultural deficit model and promote cultural thriving. This negative legacy has an intergenerational cultural echo.

While EFT has demonstrated an international relevance in diverse countries, its clinical experience and research has been largely with the dominate cultural groups within each country. Nevertheless, EFT with the multiple focus on attachment, emotions, and experiencing has provided an extremely useful map for clinical treatment.

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Of course, cultural variations in attachment styles have been noted in attachment and EFT literature (Guillory, 2021: Allen, 2024). Similarly in the literature of emotions it has been noted that cultural variations of emotional expressions (Liu, 2023). This cultural perspective is typically considered from the notion of the dominate culture within a country like China, Israel, Africa, and Iran for example come to represent both different countries & cultures.

Moreover, it has been suggested since EFT does focus on central human factors of attachments and emotions these differences in attachment styles and emotional expressions are minor variations within the central lens of EFT’s clinical focus, as a result while they are cultural differences, that do not make a difference regarding EFT treatment.

Realistically, however, there are significant less dominate cultures within many countries, and various degrees of historical (intergenerational) and present-day multicultural realities regarding social interactions & expressions along with multicultural dynamics, tensions and reactivities. These multicultural realities are typically not clinically articulated in cultural/country literature, trainings, and discussions.

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Multicultural realities between a dominate and minority cultural group within a country can have significant impact of psychological, interpersonal, and physical health (Guillory, 2021, Comas-Diaz, 2024). That is psychological suffering and physical illnesses that have significant distress because of multiculture life. In addition, thriving multiculturally will likely also be influenced by some unique coping strategies, resiliency, and joy in ways that are likely to have impactful psychology that ethical therapists to understand and promote (Koocher, 2016).

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Multicultural realities create unique stressors, coping strategies and joy that are not well understood, often not included in basic clinical textbooks, or researched, and largely not integrated to standard clinical models. Clinical teaching about cultural realities has often been challenging due to the emotional reactivity that emerges during discussions.

Prerequisite: Participants must have taken the EFT Externship

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When:

May 2-3, 2025        9am - 5pm each day

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Location:

**In-person** 

Cura Couples & Family Center of Atlanta

5 Dunwoody Park Suite 120

Atlanta, GA 30338 

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Learning Objectives:

This training will review internalized stress and cultural alienation from a multi-cultural perspective. The training will provide opportunities to review cases and discuss the integration of EFT with dynamic cultural realities. With demonstrations and discussions, we will see how this cultural focus of EFT wors when it is experienced by individuals, couples, and families. This training will advance everyone’s EFT training ass stress & culture is integrated into the heart of the EFT process. In this workshop you will discover:

• The key elements of multicultural realities, reactivity & vulnerability.

• Why multicultural realities matter.

• The key elements of EFT that guide the treatment model & outcome research and fundamental to multicultural treatment.

• A guide for framing internalized dominate culture deficit model & link to individual and interpersonal suffering.

• How to apply EFT in all three modalities to personal & interpersonal suffering that is rooted in multicultural distress.

• The process of attunement, connection, and treatment planning with dynamic integration of multicultural distress.

Outline:

• Describe the Multicultural realities and how these social dynamics create stress, distress, and trauma with respect to self-identity and interpersonal interactions.

• Lack of research & clinical focus on multicultural minorities has created an under-appreciated cab in treatment understanding & interventions.

• Outlining the internal & interpersonal suffering that is associated with the cultural deficit model which often is associate with daily live, but not always link to presenting problem

• Describe the various ways Multicultural Stress has been experienced & research.

• Describe the early sessions of EFT (three modalities) to initiate the CLINICAL discussion of multicultural realities (cultural influences of appraisals & meaning making) along with an experiential process focused approach to assessment.

• Addressing resistance to cultural realities topic

• Video demonstration and commentary

• Participant exercises

  • Early assessment interviews that include multicultural questions

  • Tango 1: track and reflect emotion, attachment significance and cultural hurt/reality

  • Tango 2: assemble/deepen emotion/attachment significance about cultural hurt/reality

  • Tango 3: share cultural hurt/reality

  • Tango 4: process sharing cultural hurt and hearing cultural hurt/reality

  • Tango 5: integrate new experience of sharing emotion and attachment significance about cultural hurt/reality

• Describe the key elements of charting the EFT course of therapy that integrates cultural realities experiences into EFT interventions and Tango moves.

• Video demonstrations

• Clinical discussions

• Describe therapists view-of-self as resource & blocks to cultural understanding & clinical EFT integration.

• Isn’t EFT enough

• These topics are “too uncomfortable.”

• Group exercise social identities and worth.

• Silence of the lambs

• Describe the goals of enhance multicultural identity and thriving unique to multicultural non-dominate people.

• Cultural Thriving

• Cultural Humility

• Cultural Identity Development

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Agenda

Day One:

9 am to 9:45  am            Intro and brief overview of EFT & Multicultural Realities 

9:45 to 11:30 am          Multidimensional impact of the deficit model in multicultural life.

11:30 to 11:45  am      Break

11:45 to 1 pm                 Setting the stage for infusing Multicultural Realities into the EFT clinical process.

                                                Video case example EFIT (assessment) & clinical discussion of multicultural impact

                                                Participant Exercise & Processing

1 pm to 2 pm                   Lunch

2 pm to 3 pm                   Integrating Multicultural Realities with an EFT intervention & moves.

                                               Video case example EFFT & clinical discussion of multicultural impact

                                               Participant Exercise & Processing

 3:15 pm to 3:30 pm         Break 

3:30 pm to 4:45 pm         Expected outcomes with the addition of multicultural focus

                                                    How to learn more: group and individual supervision / additional trainings

4:45 to 5 pm                       Q & A

Day Two:

9 am to 9:45 am               Broaching Multicultural conversations for clinical exploration          

9:45 to 11:30  am           Cultural and Identities explorations

 11:30 to 11:45 am        Break

 11:45 to 1 pm                  Two therapeutic approaches one as if culture free & one integrating culture

1 pm to 2 pm                      Lunch

 2 pm to 3 pm                    Processing racial distress cue

                                                 Cultural development as a goal of therapy

 3:15 pm to 3:30 pm     Break

3:30 pm to 4:45 pm      Processing Multicultural Realities with an EFT intervention & moves.

4:45 to 5 pm                     Q & A

Who should attend?

This advanced workshop is appropriate for all licensed and pre-licensed mental health professionals including psychologists, professional counselors, clinical social workers and marriage and family therapists who work with individuals who have attended an EFT Externship. 

***Payment is due at the time of registration.

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About the Presenter

Dr. Guillory is an Associate Professor at the University of California, Berkeley in the Clinical Science Program, Psychology Department. He has taught courses on Emotionally Focused Therapies at U.C. Berkeley. He is certified trainer, supervisor, and therapist of Emotionally Focused Therapy. He is the author of “Emotionally Focused Therapy with African American Couples: Love Heals,” Routledge, August 2021. He has created several clinical online training video tapes that amplify integrating attachment & culture (www.paultguilloryphd.com).

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Dr. Guillory has presented at several recent workshops including “Emotionally Focused Therapy in a time of Racial Reckoning” Couple & Family Institute of New England, Spring Symposium, “Race and Couples Therapy Conference,” Eikenberg Academy for Social Justice, July 2021, and “Deep Roots: Attachment & Culture, LA Center of EFT, November 2021, Attachment & Culture: Deep Roots, NCCEFT Annual 2-day Workshop, April 8 & 9, 2022, “Deep Roots: Attachment & Culture, APA 2022 workshop, Annual Convention,”Beyond Cultural Humility: breaking the legacy of race & culture in therapy, workshop, APA Annual Convention, 2023.

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He has taught first ever EFT Externships in Uganda & Kenya and EFT Core Skills in Uganda. He also has taught specialize EFT Externships & Core Skills repeatedly over several years to therapists who work with clients of color.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    He is the former chairperson of the Northern California Community of Emotionally Focused Therapy. Dr. Guillory was the psychological consultant to the Oakland Raiders professional football team and the National Football League for 14 years. He has also been a consultant to the Sacramento Kings professional basketball team, and is a selected provider for the National Basketball Players Association. He served as Director of the Center for Family Counseling in Oakland California for ten years. He is a life-time member of the Association of Black Psychologist. And he is a life-time member of the USA Masters Track & Field Association. He has been in private practice in Oakland California for over 30 years.

Continuing Education Credits - 12 Credits Applied For

Refunds

Requests to cancel registration must be submitted in writing to specialeventsaceft@gmail.com. Cancellation requests received prior to 30 days before the event will be refunded minus a $50 administration fee. Cancellations received 30 days or less before an event will receive a full credit of the paid registration toward a future ACEFT sponsored event, valid for up to 2 years from date of cancellation. Please note cancellation credits may not be applied toward Externship or Core Skills events. 

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Grievance Policy

Atlanta Community for Emotionally Focused Therapy (ACEFT) seeks to ensure equitable treatment of every person and to make every attempt to resolve grievances in a fair manner. Please submit a written grievance to ACEFT to specialeventsaceft@gmail.com. Grievances will initially be directed to the training instructor. Grievances would receive, to the best of our ability, corrective action in order to prevent further problems.

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Accommodations for the Differently Abled

ACEFT training facilities are handicap accessible. Individuals needing special accommodations, please contact: csgtherapy@gmail.com.