Relational ethics in immigrant families: The contextual therapy five-dimensional framework.

Abstract

Contextual family therapy offers a unique explanatory and clinically valuable framework to address complex multigenerational processes in families of immigrants who experience cumulative migration-related traumas. In this paper, we offer a new extended, specific conceptualization of immigrant families' generational dynamics using existing literature within the five-dimensional contextual therapy framework illustrated with a clinical example. We highlight the importance of social and relational justice, loyalty, entitlement, and parentification in transgenerational processes in addressing manifestations of these traumas that are frequently overlooked in clinical practice with different generations of immigrant families. Clinical guiding principles include acknowledgment of the social nature of situational injustices and their consequences for relational justices, exploration of loyalty conflicts (familial, cultural, and national), active dialogue of mutual care, exoneration, and stimulating constructive entitlement through active giving. This paper contributes to further development of contextual therapy theory and provides practical guidance for clinicians working with international migrants including second and third generations.