Empathic Understanding: A Skill for “Joining” with Immigrant Families

In the treatment of immigrant families the family therapist needs to understand and know multiple world views: the perspective of the therapist, the perspective of the immigrant families, and the shared experience of both therapist and immigrant family. Empathic understanding - requiring cognitive awareness, effective sensitivity, and a multidimensional perspective - may be an important skill for family therapists to develop in order to “cross over”, to create a bridge, and then to “join” with immigrant families.