Reaching Across Boundaries of Culture and Class

Widening the Scope of Psychotherapy

Edited by Rosemarie Perez-Foster, Michael Moskowitz

Publication date:

01 June 1996

Length of book:

275 pages

Publisher

Jason Aronson, Inc.

ISBN-13: 9781568214870

In a world that is forever fragmenting into divisions of ethnicity and class, this groundbreaking book offers an approach to therapy that reaches across the boundaries that usually divide us. Reaffirming psychotherapy's roots in a progressive approach to social change, the contributors show how contemporary methods can be used to treat patients often previously thought unresponsive to psychodynamic therapy. Cultural values, countertransference guilt, immigration, bilingualism, and battered self-esteem in African-American patients are among the many topics discussed. Numerous examples guide the clinician to a better understanding of the role of culture in the therapeutic relationship.

A Jason Aronson BookIn a world that is forever fragmenting into divisions of ethnicity and class, this groundbreaking book offers an approach to therapy that reaches across the boundaries that usually divide us. Reaffirming psychotherapy's roots in a progressive approach to social change, the contributors show how contemporary methods can be used to treat patients often previously thought unresponsive to psychodynamic therapy. Cultural values, countertransference guilt, immigration, bilingualism, and battered self-esteem in African-American patients are among the many topics discussed. Numerous examples guide the clinician to a better understanding of the role of culture in the therapeutic relationship.

Chapter 1 Introduction
Chapter 2 What is a Multicultural Perspective for Psychoanalysis?
Chapter 3 The Social Conscience of Psychoanalysis
Chapter 4 Psychoanalysis in an Historic-Economic Perspective
Chapter 5 How Universal is the Psychoanalytic Self?
Chapter 6 Psychodynamic Treatment with the Urban Poor
Chapter 7 The African-American Patient in Psychodynamic Treatment
Chapter 8 Working-Class Issues
Chapter 9 Countertransference in Cross-Cultural Psychotherapy
Chapter 10 The End of Analyzability
Chapter 11 The Accommodation of Diversity in Psychoanalysis
Chapter 12 Skin Color in Psychotherapy
Chapter 13 In Search of Repressed Memories in Bilingual Individuals
Chapter 14 Assessing the Psychodynamic Function of Language in the Bilingual Patient

This book is long overdue. It brings to the forefront the need to have a transcultural perspective in doing psychodynamic therapy. The authors demonstrate that the self-understanding offered through psychodynamic therapy is indeed accessible when practiced by culturally informed practitioners. All psychotherapists who practice in our multicultural society should read this book.