Interracial Couples, Intimacy, and Therapy

Kyle D. Killian, Ph.D., LMFT, is associate professor and scholar at the Centre for Refugee Studies at York University, Toronto. A licensed couple and family therapist, he has published books, articles, and chapters on interracial and intercultural couples, immigrant and refugee families, and trauma and resilience. Interculturally married, he lives with his wife, Anna, and their two trilingual sons.

This comprehensive, up-to-date book captures the realities of today's interracial couples via authentic and compelling narratives and is a landmark reference for seasoned scholars and practitioners, as well as for students in the social sciences and clinical professions. -- Peter Fraenkel, City College of New York and Ackerman Institute's Center for Work and Family Without fear, Kyle D. Killian inquires into the lives of interracial couples, inviting readers to appreciate how race relations unavoidably makes its way into the most intimate spaces. Adopting a strengths-oriented approach, his book wonderfully weaves history, couple formation, human development theory, family systems approaches, and social constructionist psychotherapy approaches to illuminate interracial couples' lived experience. It is a must addition in counseling psychology, couples therapy, and multicultural counseling courses and a welcome addition to undergraduate courses in family and human development. -- Gonzalo Bacigalupe, Director, Family Therapy Program, University of Massachusetts Boston Killian connects the experiences of twenty interracial couples to literature, cinema, and the intersections of culture, race, gender, and class. Contending that moving beyond silence about race can be transformative, he provides ways that professionals can help interracial couples make sense of their experiences of marginalization, find their voice, and reauthor their family identities in life-enhancing ways. This emancipatory book is for all those who support and celebrate relationships that may not fit society's conventions. -- Fred P. Piercy, Editor, Journal of Marital and Family Therapy Killian has made a major contribution to the scholarly literature on multiracialism in the twenty-first century, providing a means to affirm interracial intimacy while reinforcing, rather than rejecting or retiring, an anti-racist political project. This book should be required reading for all those in the helping professions struggling to understand better the matrix of race, gender, class, and sexuality in and beyond their clinical practice. To the extent that they are animated by a desire to live and love in a more just and equal world, rather than a 'free market,' this learned study should appeal to academic and general audiences alike. -- Jared Sexton, University of California, Irvine Killian does an excellent job of discussing the intersections of race, gender, and socioeconomic factors as they affect the development and progression of intimate relationships in the lives of his participants... A strong contribution to the literature on working therapeutically with such couples and to the broader literature on multiracial families. PsycCRITIQUES

• Acknowledgments Introduction. What Interracial Couples Can Tell Us Significance of the Book Unpacking Basic Concepts: Race Interracial in the Age of Obama: The Impact of Color-Blind and "Postracial" Discourses The Politics of Voice: A Note from the Author The Couples 1. Racialized Bodies and Borders in the United States Defining and Demarcating Borders Interracial Borders from the Sixteenth Century to the Present Trends in Black-White Intermarriage Race and Sex Differences in Marriage Rates: The "Marriage Squeeze" Interracial Mate-Selection Theories Summary 2. Crossing a Black-and-White Border: Choosing the Other Attraction and Falling in Love Partners' Reactions to Differences Is There Any Difference? Negotiating Differences in Axes of Power to Establish a Couple Identity In Black and White: The Border of Race He Said Summary 3. Crossing Community Borders: Families of Origin Social Support and Resistance to the Relationship Strategies of Coping with Reactions Multiracial Couples and Social Networks Partner Sensitivity to Racism: The Community Context Summary 4. A Nexus of Borders: The Next Generation The Next Generation and Their Opportunities A Persistent Question: "What About the Children?" Intersections of Gender and Race Intersections of Race and Class White Male and Female Partners About Difference: Social and Political Dimensions Happy Together? Processes Contributing to Couple Identity Formation Couple Identities and Negotiation Styles Summary 5. Raising (and Erasing) Difference: Dominant and Marginalized Discourses in Interracial Couples' Narratives What Is Discourse Analysis? The Discourse of Homogamy The Discourse of Hypersensitivity The Discourse of History's Insignificance What These Findings Say About Multiracial Couples An Overarching Discourse of "No Race Talk" Summary 6. Systemic Interventions with Interracial Couples The Art of Drawing Distinctions Instead of Conclusions What Couples Said About Therapy Couples Who Might Present for Therapy Specific Assessments and Interventions A Narrative Approach to Therapy with Multiracial Couples Summary 7. (Re)presentations of Interracial Couples in Cinema Cinema and Literature: Racial Logics and the Hegemonic Aesthetics of Intimacy Interracial Couples' Own Depictions of Their Intimate Relations Reflecting on the Research and the Researcher: Integrating the Interview Process Are Interracial Couples Different from Intraracial Couples? Salience of Identities: Under Which Conditions Notes Appendix A. Summary of Participant Information Appendix B. Assessment Inventories Appendix C. Directions for Scoring the Assessment Inventories Appendix D. Resources for Interracial Couples and Multiracial Families and Individuals References Index