How do therapists address religious beliefs and ethnic background in psychotherapy? A survey study on broaching intersectional identities and the therapeutic alliance.

BACKGROUND: The current study focuses on clients who identify at the intersection of religious/spiritual and ethnic minority backgrounds, as research has demonstrated that therapists often fail to attend to the constellation of these identities and therefore may not provide optimal care.

AIMS: By studying the association between client reports of therapists' broaching for ethnic background and religious/spirituality affiliation on the one hand, and the therapeutic alliance on the other hand, the aim is to explore how therapists' intersectional sensitivity enhances the therapeutic alliance.

METHOD: Data consisted of an online cross-sectional survey about experience in therapy administered to 260 religious ethnic minority members who received at least one session of psychotherapy in the last 6 months.

RESULTS: Therapists are perceived to use broaching strategies to an equal extent for both ethnic and religious/spiritual identities. Moreover, results indicate that therapists' ability to attend to both identities, instead of just one, is positively reflected in clients' reported quality of the therapeutic alliance with evidence of both additive and synergistic effects.

CONCLUSIONS: The findings underscore the importance of an intersectional lens to broaching to enhance the perceived quality of the therapeutic alliance.