Therapy Across Culture

This groundbreaking volume demonstrates the importance of cross-cultural communication to psychotherapy, psychoanalysis, and counseling. It gives an introduction to anthropological issues that are relevant to cross-cultural work, examining practical as well as conceptual aspects of culture. The book provides an overview and gives examples on which clinicians may draw to enhance their understanding of their clients and will help anthropologists and medical anthropologists understand and interpret the personal circumstances of their informants. Complex theories from ethnography and anthropology are explained and made accessible, while kinship, attachment and emotion, and ritual and taboo are explored, illuminating how the cultural content of patterns of interaction and behavior are expressed in ideas, feelings, attitudes and inclinations. Finally, it is argued that cross-cultural communication must originate in the therapist or anthropologist taking responsibility for becoming aware of his or her own assumptions as a starting point for cross-cultural work. Clearly written, the book will be essential reading for counselors, psychotherapists, psychoanalysts, and all those in the related helping professions who work cross-culturally.