Cross-Cultural Responsiveness & Systemic Therapy

Shruti Singh Poulsen is an Associate Professor in the Counseling Program at the University of Colorado Denver. She teaches and supervises Master’s level students primarily in the couple and family therapy track. She has been clinically active in couple and family therapy and supervision for over 20 years. She received her doctorate from the MFT Program at Purdue University in 2003. She has been faculty at the University of Colorado Denver for over seven years. At CU Denver, she has taught Family Therapy Theories, Family Therapy Techniques, Counseling Couples, Introduction to Sex Therapy, Internship, and Practicum; most recently she taught an undergraduate course (Skills for Helping Professions) in Human Development & Family Relations, a new undergraduate program in her school. Her research, teaching and service all focus on areas of multiculturalism; specifically access to good mental health care to diverse populations, and training culturally responsive and competent therapists and counselors. She is also interested in empirically based treatments and their utility with diverse client populations; to this effort, she has obtained advanced training in EFT, Gottman Level I training, and training in IBCT. The majority of her scholarly work (publications & presentations) focuses on clinical work with diverse client populations with specific focus on areas such as immigration, interracial and diverse couples, cultural implications for training and supervision. Robert Allan is an Assistant Professor in the Counseling Program at the University of Colorado Denver. He teaches and supervises Master’s level students primarily in the couple and family therapy track. He came to working with people more directly in therapy after twenty years of community-based development work and developed a keen understanding of the impact of various stressors and community factors that can affect our lives. He has been helping couples, individuals and families improve their most important relationships, health, and well-being for over 25 years now. As his clinical practice evolved, he was drawn to systemic approaches to working with people. This was a natural evolution from his community work where they drew on a range of health promotion and population health models for working with health challenges. He received a Master’s in counseling from Acadia University, an Interdisciplinary Ph.D. from Dalhousie University (Canada), and did a post-grad route to become an MFT and approved AAMFT supervisor.

• Social Justice Implications for MFT: The Need for Cross-Cultural Responsiveness.- Before Cultural Competence: Exploring the Latent & Overt Emotionalities of Whiteness.- Evidence Based Practices & Cultural Responsiveness.- Cross-culturally Responsive Training of Emotionally Focused Couple Therapy: International Experiences.- Cultural Responsiveness in Family Therapy: Integrative & Common Factors Lens.- Client-Centered Advocacy in Education and Clinical Training from the Supervisees’ Perspective.- Training & Supervision Across Disciplines to Engage in Cross-cultural Competence & Responsiveness: Counseling & Family Therapy.- Cross Cultural Relevance of Systemic Family Therapy & Globally Responsive Cross Cultural Training: An Indian Case Study.- Couple & Family Therapy Training in the Context of Turkey.- The Future of MFT: Clinical Implications of Cross-cultural Responsiveness & Social Justice Lens to the Field.