An intersubjective approach to cross-cultural clinical work

The cross-cultural clinical encounter is fraught with anxieties, fears, bia ses, and misunderstandings that are experienced bq, both members of the the rapeutic dyad. Through their articulation mainly within the intersubjective dimension of co-experience, these subjective states, if unacknowledged by the dyad, cart seriously impact, derail, and even prematurely truncate the treatment process. This paper focuses particularly on the therapist's subjective state in the process of cross-cultural clinical work, describing its dynamic action thro ugh what the author terms "the clinician's cultural countertransference. "T his is a complex matrix of pre-existing cognitions and affects about cultur al groups that operates at multiple levels of consciousness within the ther apist's psyche and can be communicated to ethnic clients at varied points o f interpersonal and intersubjective contact. Substantial case illustrations are used to illuminate these dynamics, emphasizing both the therapist's cu lturally driven subjective experiences and mode of clinical intervention.