The detrimental effect of fragile groups: Examining the role of cultural comfort for group therapy members of color.

ABSTRACT

Scholars have underscored the importance of cultural processes within therapy groups, but there is a paucity of empirical research on this topic. Recently, the multicultural orientation framework was applied to group therapy to address this limitation and empirically test the role of cultural comfort, cultural humility, and cultural opportunities in a group context. Despite this advancement, a more nuanced understanding of the differential effects of cultural processes based on group members' race/ethnicity status is needed. Informed by theory and research on White fragility, this study sought to test the differential relationship between cultural comfort and cultural concealment, as well as cultural comfort and improvement, for 97 Racial-Ethnic Minority (REM) and 109 White members of 49 therapy groups. As hypothesized, REM status significantly moderated the association between cultural comfort and clients' cultural concealment and improvement, such that cultural comfort was negatively associated with cultural concealment and positively associated with improvement in group therapy for REM clients but not White clients. Results and implications are discussed within a fragility framework. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).