The flex theory of personality looks to the levels of match and mismatch between individuals and their environments to explain problems of maladjustment. In the flex theory of personality, match and mismatch are assessed in two domains: cognitive and cultural.

This chapter introduces an approach to psychotherapy and counseling which evolved from the experience of treating clients who were suffering from feeling different and from mismatch shock.

This chapter focuses on the preferred cultural and cognitive styles of the therapist. Further, it examines the degree to which the therapist can and should flex in order to match the client and serve as a multicultural model.

The principal goal of the initial two sessions of multicultural psychotherapy and counseling is to match the preferred cultural and cognitive styles of the client.

This chapter focuses on two major objectives: encouraging clients to accept their unique selves and encouraging them to develop an orientation to life that reflects cultural and cognitive flexibility.

Once the mismatch phase of multicultural psychotherapy is well underway, the therapist should reassess the client in order to gage the client’s progress in the various areas and domains of cultural and cognitive styles and flex development. Client and therapist assessment is multimodal. It involves the use of personality and value inventories, behavioral (verbal and nonverbal) ratings, and the evaluation of the degree of progress made in homework assignments. This chapter reviews both the assessment procedures for clients and therapists and the feedback procedures used with the client after the assessment results have been evaluated.