“I am not comfortable telling you my family’s history of mental health conditions, it’s embarrassing.”

Though unsurprised by this statement, I was stunned by its disclosure. Actually, I was pleased, because in my clinical experience, I am rarely able to address these feelings since they are not typically shared with me in some cultures. Instead, questions about family mental health history and the longevity of mental health symptoms are usually unanswered or minimized. This underreporting of symptoms in certain cultures to mental health clinicians can be harmful because it impedes proper diagnosis of mental health conditions and treatment aligned with the condition. Since I knew that these feelings interfered with my gathering of information, I changed course to reduce the “embarrassment" that this person endured. Instead, I created an environment that allowed this person to feel at ease with sharing information.

To avoid scaring mental health clients off, my recommendation is for practitioners to focus on building trust, showing empathy, and creating a welcoming, nonjudgmental environment. I decided to use empathy and cultural sensitivity combined with normalizing mental health and psychoeducation. This also allowed me to foster rapport and comfort with this client and this is how I did it:

1. Empathy

You do not need to be of your client's culture to show kindness and concern. It is more important to listen and understand their feelings. What I do is to encourage communication by my verbal and non-verbal expressions. For example, I........

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