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Running head: MULTICULTURAL THERAPY/PSYCHOLOGY AND CHAOS

Multicultural Therapy/Psychology and Chaos Theory

Rory Remer, Ph.D.
Department of Educational and Counseling Psychology
University of Kentucky

December 6, 2008

Running head: MULTICULTURAL THERAPY/PSYCHOLOGY AND CHAOS

Multicultural Therapy/Psychology and Chaos Theory

December 6, 2008

Abstract
Culture and its various aspects--identity development, enculturation, cross-cultural communication, among others--are non-linear, dynamic, process phenomena. Multicultural theorists and practitioners (e.g., Sue & Sue, 1990) have complained about the struggle necessary to make multiculturalism fit with the present scientific perspective, Logical Positivism (LP). Rather than rely on such contortions (e.g., Fischer, Jome, & Atkinson, 1998), a paradigm shift to Chaos Theory (ChT), whose tenets are both more consistent with multiculturalism and more encompassing than those of LP, would prove beneficial. To make the case for ChT, after overviewing ChT and comparing it to LP, some examples of the application of ChT to Multicultural Therapy/Psychology are provided. Finally, the demands of such a shift and the theoretical and practical implications are discussed.
Multicultural Therapy/Psychology and Chaos Theory
As you read the following quotes, be alert to their theme.
U. S. society is too complicated to be called a melting pot--or even a goulash, a mosaic, or a tossed salad. It is a dynamic mixture of ethnic cultures and the dominant White culture, all in continuous firsthand contact, sometimes running parallel to each other and sometimes intertwining and interacting. (Sodowsky, Kwan, & Pannu, 1995, pp. 123-124)

However, the ethnic person is involved in an even more complex interactional process. The ethnic person, while trying to locate with reference to the dominant group, is simultaneously attempting to locate socially and psychologically with reference to an ethnic group. In addition, in...