Abstract
This chapter discusses three areas of potential difficulty for rural psychotherapists: adjusting to and gaining acceptance by the community, learning to cope with the rural physical and social environments themselves, and working out the sometimes intricate boundary problems that exist at the personal/community interface. Six stages of integration into rural communities are posited. During the adjustment period, practitioners first deny differences existing in the rural area, then overestimate their ability to successfully integrate. Next they either overidentify with their neighbors, or reject all rural ways. Realizing their strategy is not working, they decide to leave, or to change. If they stay, they can go on to create a workable balance between community pressures and professional and personal values.