Cultural and personal dimensions in human life

The closing panel of the 7th NMCOP Conference discussed issues at the interface of individual development and culture. While social work psychotherapists have always recognized the impact of culture on the individual, current psychoanalytic explorations and theorizing are attending to basic assumptions about living that vary considerably among cultures, are deeply embedded in the unconscious, and profoundly affect psychological development and functioning. Awareness of these differences is essential when the therapist encounters a patient from a culture that is very different from her own and when the language used in psychotherapy is a foreign one for the patient. Experiences are processed in the symbol system of the language in which they occurred. Psychotherapy for the foreign born includes a process of translation of experiences to which a sensitive psychotherapist needs to attune herself.