Date of Award

Spring 2026

Document Type

Open Access Thesis

Department

Psychology

First Advisor

Kimberly D. Becker

Abstract

Cultural competence is understood as a necessary piece in providing mental health services (American Psychological Association, 2017), however little research has evaluated how conversations pertaining to culture occur during clinical supervision. This study is designed to examine the frequency, content, and predictors of cultural discussions in 631 clinical supervision sessions between 93 supervisor-therapist dyads. Using transcripts from school-based mental health services in California and South Carolina, descriptive analyses were applied to identify commonly used words informed by multicultural dictionaries and the ADDRESSING model. The most commonly used words in the dataset pertained to gender (36.5%) and national origin (17.4%) cultural identity categories rather than race/ethnicity (7.5%). Regression analyses were used to examine how provider and youth characteristics (e.g., race/ethnicity, language spoken at home, presenting problems) predict both the number of cultural references and the breadth of identities discussed. Clinician characteristics, specifically supervisor racial/ethnic identity, were significant predictors (ps < .05) influencing conversations with cultural words while youth characteristics were not (ps > .05). There were also similar numbers of references to cultural words and identities across demographically and socio-politically diverse sites (ps > .05). These findings may inform supervision and training practices by highlighting how provider and contextual factors shape cultural conversations in supervision, with implications for improving culturally responsive mental health services.

Rights

© 2026, Rosalba Bonilla

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