Significant diversity in the human population has resulted in the need for mental health practitioners to increase their cultural awareness and cultural competence in the process of psychotherapy. The psychotherapist should be culturally competent of the difference among specific ethnic groups, as well as be cognizant of the need to respect any differences. In addition, different cultures need an understanding of the values and biases that may be associated with such minorities.
It is of prime importance that a psychotherapist understanding the history and lifestyles of different cultures with which he is working on. It is of necessary that a concrete knowledge of socio-political factors of these ethnic groups, as well as their relation to the rest of the society. In addition, a psychotherapist must have an understanding of value assumptions of abnormality and normality that are important in the major schools of therapy (Sue and Sue, 2003).
Psychotherapy is often limited when the client is of a different culture because certain characteristics such as language and values may be different from that of the psychotherapist. With this is mind, the psychotherapist should have acquired the ability to read into the verbal as well as non-verbal responses of a culturally different client. It is therefore of prime importance that the psychotherapist is aware of the diverse modes of responses that a culturally different client may express.
Different therapeutic orientations may be employed in the psychotherapeutic analysis of Asian clients. The first therapeutic orientation is psychoanalytic therapy, which is employed in order to discover and interpret the client’s conscious and unconscious thoughts, motivations, ego defenses and feelings, the therapist uses free association. Free association technique generally requires clients to verbalize freely about their thoughts and feelings.
However, Asian clients would find it difficult to divulge their intimate personal information due to their adherence to the traditional values, which emphasizes a person to exert self-control in the expression of feelings in order to maintain social and relational harmony. This may be a challenge for therapists working with the psychoanalytic orientation (Hong & Ham, 2001).
However, on a positive side, psychoanalytic approach emphasizes achieving insight through the discovery of unconscious thoughts, feelings and motivations, which is similar to the Asian cultural concepts such as striving for self-development through the process of introspection. Although insight-oriented approach is appealing to most Asian clients, they practice the process of self-examination privately and not revealed to others. Hence, clinicians should attend to the possible uneasiness of the client while exploring the most intimate thoughts and feelings in their inner world.
Most Asians anticipate quick symptom relief when they actually do seek mental health services. Rather than mere reliance of free association, the clinician could instill structure in the therapy session by asking questions and giving directions to the client. This would not only maximize the effectiveness of therapy outcome but also meet the client’s expectations in treatment. One way of addressing of this problem is for the clinician to educate the client at the onset therapy the nature and rationale of psychoanalytic approach to ease the client into the process.
Some of the more commonly complaints made by Asian clients is their impatience in the process of psychoanalytic therapy with the clinician’s pace in addressing the client’s symptoms; focus of the past rather than the present and lack of structure in the session. According to Tang (1997) and Yi (1995), exploration of the client’s life events that are relevant to them such as migration experiences would inadvertently elicit important information such as past memories of childhood and or parental influences (Hong & Ham, 2001).