| Summary: | In their first session together, Melba Jean Trinidad Vasquez works with a young African American woman in her late 20s who is experiencing issues with trust and intimacy in dating. Using multicultural therapy as a framework, Vasquez establishes an empathic and supportive rapport with her client and honors the difficulties that African American women encounter in finding suitable partners. Vasquez helps the client explore her ambivalence with wanting to be in a committed relationship while fearing intimacy and vulnerability. Although the client often attracts unsuitable and unavailable men, she is also quick to rule out others because they do not meet her high standards. Vasquez guides the client through discovering that she is seeking an emotional connection prior to engaging in sexual activity and that she is likely attracting emotionally unavailable men because her father was emotionally absent.
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