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Enactments of Cultural and Professional Beliefs, Values, and Biases in Therapy: Negotiating Difference, Power, and the Therapeutic Relationship Across Cultures - Eunjung Lee, PhD (Webinar live online)
2026 Grand Rounds Series
Drawing on empirical research on cross-cultural psychotherapy processes, this presentation examines moment-to-moment therapeutic interactions in which therapists' often unmarked cultural, professional, and sociopolitical assumptions, norms, and values are enacted. Particular attention will be given to how these interactions shape key therapeutic processes, including the therapeutic relationship, client self-disclosure, engagement, and, ultimately, treatment outcomes.
The presentation features transcripts from actual videotaped psychotherapy sessions conducted in outpatient community mental health and family counselling settings, as well as brief segments from publicly available psychotherapy videos. These examples highlight seemingly ordinary clinical interactions, such as supporting parents with child-rearing challenges, conducting mental status assessments, working with clients experiencing depression, and assisting with disability benefit applications.
Through detailed linguistic and social interactional analyses, the presentation illuminates how routine therapeutic exchanges can inadvertently reinforce, negotiate, or challenge the implicit values, assumptions, and biases of both therapists and clients. From a relational perspective, participants will be invited to consider how unspoken cultural expectations, professional norms, and power dynamics become enacted within the therapeutic encounter and influence engagement and meaning-making between therapist and client.
The presentation will encourage critical reflection on participants' own clinical practice and offer opportunities to explore ways of collaboratively negotiating cultural differences and power imbalances in therapy. Practical guidelines and discourse-based strategies for fostering therapeutic engagement across cultural differences will be presented and critically discussed. The discussion will also consider how therapists' implicit cultural and professional assumptions may shape relational dynamics within therapy and influence what becomes speakable, unspeakable, or therapeutically actionable in clinical work.
Target Audience
____X__ Introductory ___X___ Intermediate __X___ Advanced
Learning Objectives
- Identify how cultural, professional, and sociopolitical assumptions and values may become enacted in moment-to-moment therapeutic interactions, shaping what can be expressed, heard, and understood in psychotherapy.
- Analyze micro-level clinical interactions to identify relational processes that promote or constrain therapeutic engagement and shape the negotiation of meaning, difference, and authority within the therapeutic relationship.
- Apply discourse-informed and relational strategies to navigate cross-cultural differences and power imbalances while fostering therapeutic engagement, collaboration, and mutual understanding.
Course summary
- 1.00 AMA PRA Category 1 Credit™
ACCME - As a Jointly Accredited Organization, The Austen Riggs Center, Inc. designates this learning activity for a maximum of 1.00 AMA PRA Category 1 Credit™. Physicians should claim only the credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in the activity.
- 1.00 APA
As a Jointly Accredited Organization, The Austen Riggs Center, Inc. designates this learning activity for 1.00 continuing education credit(s) (CE) for psychology. Continuing Education (CE) credits for psychologists are provided through the co-sponsorship of the American Psychological Association (APA) Office of Continuing Education in Psychology (CEP). The APA CEP Office maintains responsibility for the content of the programs.
Austen Riggs Center, Inc. is recognized by the New York State Education Department’s State Board for Psychology as an approved provider of continuing education for licensed psychologists #PSY-0115.
- 1.00 ASWB-ACE
As a Jointly Accredited Organization, The Austen Riggs Center, Inc is approved to offer social work continuing education by the Association of Social Work Boards (ASWB) Approved Continuing Education (ACE) program. Organization, not individual courses, are approved under this program. State and provincial regulatory boards have the final authority to determine whether an individual course may be accepted for continuing education credit. Austen Riggs Center maintains responsibility for this. Social workers completing this Webinar live will receive 1.00 continuing education credit(s).Austen Riggs Center, Inc is recognized by the New York State Education Department's State Board for Social Work as an approved provider of continuing education for licensed social workers #SW-0843.
- 1.00 Contact Hours/ ParticipationA certificate of attendance for all Learners.
Eunjung Lee, PhD, is Professor and Endowed Chair in Mental Health & Health at the Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work, University of Toronto, Canada. She has served as Associate Editor of the Clinical Social Work Journal, Cultural Competence Track Chair for the Council on Social Work Education (CSWE), and a member of the Advisory Panel of the Association of Social Work Boards (ASWB) in the United States.
A psychotherapy process researcher and critical discourse analyst, Dr. Lee's scholarship examines everyday interactions within cross-cultural clinical and institutional settings. Her work explores ways to enhance practitioners' competencies through simulation-based learning (SBL), analyzes social policy from the perspectives of racialized communities, immigrants, and refugees, and critically theorizes multiculturalism, welfare states, and democratic governance in both Canadian and Korean contexts.
An internationally recognized scholar in critical social work, Dr. Lee has received more than 60 national and international research grants, published over 110 peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters, and delivered hundreds of keynote addresses and conference presentations around the world. Her recent co-edited book, Epistemic Injustice and Resistance in Social Work: Rethinking Social Justice in Practice, Education, and Research (Lee, Greenblatt, & Hu, Eds., 2026), has been published by Routledge.
Austen Riggs Center Inc. adheres to the ACCME’s Standards for Integrity and Independence in Accredited Continuing Medical Education. All those at Austen Riggs Center involved in the planning of this activity, including the presenter(s) listed above, report they have no relevant financial relationships with an ineligible company*.
The views and opinions expressed in this presentation are those of the presenter(s) and do not necessarily represent the official policy or position of the Austen Riggs Center.
Available Credit
- 1.00 AMA PRA Category 1 Credit™
ACCME - As a Jointly Accredited Organization, The Austen Riggs Center, Inc. designates this learning activity for a maximum of 1.00 AMA PRA Category 1 Credit™. Physicians should claim only the credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in the activity.
- 1.00 APA
As a Jointly Accredited Organization, The Austen Riggs Center, Inc. designates this learning activity for 1.00 continuing education credit(s) (CE) for psychology. Continuing Education (CE) credits for psychologists are provided through the co-sponsorship of the American Psychological Association (APA) Office of Continuing Education in Psychology (CEP). The APA CEP Office maintains responsibility for the content of the programs.
Austen Riggs Center, Inc. is recognized by the New York State Education Department’s State Board for Psychology as an approved provider of continuing education for licensed psychologists #PSY-0115.
- 1.00 ASWB-ACE As a Jointly Accredited Organization, The Austen Riggs Center, Inc is approved to offer social work continuing education by the Association of Social Work Boards (ASWB) Approved Continuing Education (ACE) program. Organization, not individual courses, are approved under this program. State and provincial regulatory boards have the final authority to determine whether an individual course may be accepted for continuing education credit. Austen Riggs Center maintains responsibility for this. Social workers completing this Webinar live will receive 1.00 continuing education credit(s).
Austen Riggs Center, Inc is recognized by the New York State Education Department's State Board for Social Work as an approved provider of continuing education for licensed social workers #SW-0843.
- 1.00 Contact Hours/ ParticipationA certificate of attendance for all Learners.