Grace, Phillip E., April 1989 - ROLE EXPECTATIONS, ADJUSTMENTS, AND CHALLENGES OF THE CLINICAL ANTHROPOLOGIST: AN INTERNSHIP EXPERIENCE Abstract: Clinical settings offer anthropologists many opportunities to apply anthropological theory and method to health care issues. Clinical anthropologists can contribute to clinical practice in research, training, or service roles, or in some combination of these activities However, there are a number of difficulties anthropologists experience when attempting to practice anthropology in clinical settings, which are so different from the settings of traditional anthropological fieldwork. Clinical anthropologists must deal with the dearth of professional activities. The most common problem anthropologists encounter in clinical practice is that of acceptance by practitioners of established clinical professions. Clinical anthropologists also must work consciously to retain both professional and personal objectivity, and to maintain their identities as anthropologists even as they perform tasks not ordinarily associated with anthropological research. This thesis critically examines the current clinical anthropology literature, and discusses the roles clinical anthropologists may assume and the problems they may encounter in clinical practice. It will also suggest a general inventory of skills and attributes which have been found to be of benefit by various kinds of clinical anthropologists. A primary purpose of this thesis is to examine the literature in light of the author's own internship experience in a clinical mental health setting.