Cultural humility in psychotherapy and clinical supervision: A research review

Cultural humility, first introduced a quarter century ago, has increasingly emerged over the last decade as a concept of considerable importance: it has been touted as playing a crucial role in potentially enhancing the relationship in both psychotherapy and supervision, its practice being heartily embraced and roundly recommended. But are those recommendations and that hearty embrace justified? What do the empirical data say? We address those questions subsequently, taking a granular look at studies in which cultural humility vis-a-vis psychotherapy and supervision have been examined. Based on our review of 21 psychotherapy/cultural humility studies and seven supervision/cultural humility studies, we offer critique of the research work done thus far (e.g., it being decade delimited and landlocked) and propose recommendations for future treatment and supervision investigations (e.g., internationalising cultural humility research). Because cultural humility appears to be a durable and enduring concept, appears practically beneficial for both the therapy and supervision situations and is increasingly being pursued empirically, such a research report would seem particularly timely and potentially helpful in advancing research.