Now in a fully revised and expanded second edition, this classic text helps professionals and students understand and address cultural and racial issues in therapy with African American clients. Leading family therapist Nancy Boyd-Franklin explores the problems and challenges facing African American communities at different socioeconomic levels, expands major therapeutic concepts and models to be more relevant to the experiences of African American families and individuals, and outlines an empowerment-based, multisystemic approach to helping clients mobilize cultural and personal resources for change. The volume first presents a broad conceptual framework to guide and inform clinical work. Emphasizing the diversity of African American families, the author reviews racial identity and skin color issues and discusses cultural values and characteristics that many families share. Extensively rewritten, the second edition features new chapters on the impact of racism on gender socialization and relationships--including implications for couple therapy--and on divorce, remarriage, and stepparenting in the extended family context. Coverage of religion and spirituality and their role in therapeutic work has been expanded, and brief sections added on Caribbean and biracial children and families. Also analyzed are important topics for African American communities today: Afrocentricity; Rites-of-Passage programs; educational disparities, particularly as they affect boys; racial profiling; violence; substance abuse; HIV/AIDS; and more. Next addressed are nuts-and-bolts issues in culturally competent practice. Major family therapy theories and approaches are reviewed and their relevance for African American clients evaluated. Describing effective ways to engage clients and intervene in the various systems that affect their lives, the author devotes thoughtful attention to the therapist's use of self and the subtleties involved in the treatment pr
