ISBN978-0-470-08632-2

This book is a disappointment; it has a negative and depressive overtone. It makes assumptions, gives opinions as fact, and makes intellectual leaps. For example, p. 311 reads, "But, just as the history of the United States is the history of racism, it is also the history of antiracism as well." That sounds balanced at first read, but to equate the history of the US with the history of racism ignores what is happening all over the world. It ignores the six million jews that died under the Nazi regime; it ignores the Serb and Croat conflagration, the Hmong, the Khmer Rouge. It ignores what is happening in Kenya, Chad, Sudan, and Nigeria today, or Rwanda or the Congo just a few years back. It ignores the history between Japan and Korea, Ukraine and the Soviet Union, the Australians and the Maori, the Kurds and the Iraqi's. That type of oversimplification casues me to wonder what else is not being throughly addressed.

I, as well as some of my classmates, are less than pleased with the approach of this textbook. It is being used in a M.A. level psychology class, to discuss and become aware of cultural issues in therapy situations. Our complaint has come from the opinion that Sue and Sue lack a perspective from both sides. They will explain how an unaware therapist did not handle a session well due to his/her lack of cultural awareness, but then the other side of how the client's attitudes and actions also affected the outcome of the therapy is not considered and discussed. Sue and Sue offer a very skewed perspective that allows individual's from other cultures who have chosen to live in the U.S. to be the victim's of poor treatment, and yet; Sue and Sue does not show how the attitudes and actions of these cultures can also adversely impact the outcome of situations that they experience. Someone needs to write a textbook that adequately covers both sides of this cultural diversity issue! The dean of my department is unaware of such a text, otherwise, he said we would be using it.

Fast shipping, excellent communication, book in great condition and acurate description of the item provided. Will do biz. with again.

Previous critical reviews have detailed pretty much everything I found of this book (except the expectedly mindless "liberal" comments), so I'm just adding to the general consensus of this text as deeply flawed but useful. The revolutionary rhetoric Sue and Sue utilize is indeed dated and counterproductive; what may have been necessarily and productively inflammatory fifteen or twenty years ago now plays as tired and old. There is much to be said for smashing the cocoon of power and privilege, but critical thought long ago graduated to more comprehensive vistas than "whitey bad, everybody else good." My biggest beef with this text is that it's used in graduate courses when it should be applied at the introductory, first year undergraduate level where shock value has considerable weight. At the graduate level I expect far more comprehensive, subtle, and nuanced investigations of whatever subject I'm studying.
However, at the same time I read on this site more than a smidgeon of exactly the sort of calcified, racially privileged bleating which the authors try so clumsily to fracture, so obviously their task is hardly finished. I just hope they either a) pass the torch to a younger, more adept generation of cultural authors, or b) attend to the coherent criticisms of their work carefully, and take them to heart for the next edition.

I teach a masters level counseling psychology course. I require this book for my students. I don't require that they agree with it, but I require that they are open enough to reading it and having an intelligent discussion about issues of diversity in therapy. Many of my students will work with clients who are of a different ethnicity than themselves. Although understanding some of the cultural norms of differing populations is important, it is more important that my students are aware of the conscious and often unconscious biases that they as therapists carry into their sessions. It saddens me that so many seemingly good White people, have issues discussing race and their own privilege. Racism is one of the most contagious diseases on the planet, and unfortunately to some degree- we have all caught it. But if we simply deny it, we will never heal. And even if you feel you are the most enlightened of White people, your clients of color may still see you as White, which will add a very important dimension to the therapy.
I also have had the luxury of working in several large agencies where I hire and fire therapists. I always ask a question about diversity. I would never be able to hire many of the reviewers here. With their indignation when told they have privilege, and their 1950's attitudes about race and culture, they would lack the necessary competence to work with people of color. One day, ethical standards will change- and they will find it difficult to find a place in the therapeutic community to do any work at all.