Unraveling Cultural Countertransference: The Experience of Caucasian Therapists Working with Asian-American Adults

Abstract

This qualitative study explores the countertransference experiences of seven psychodynamically-trained Caucasian therapists who treated an Asian-American adult for at least a year. These seasoned clinicians were interviewed about their beliefs, feelings, and sense of connection with their American-born clients whose parents had immigrated from Mainland China, Taiwan, Korea, Vietnam and the Philippines. The article describes the Caucasian therapists’ responses as they navigated the unfamiliar terrain of their clients’ bi-cultural identities. The relevance of Western psychological theories was also explored. The findings from the interviews were grouped into six categories that comprised the participants’ cultural countertransference experiences: 1) impact of the participants’ personal cultural background on potential countertransference 2) Impact of their familiarity with and preconceptions about Asian culture 3) importance given to cultural issues in the treatment 4) degree of resonance with the client’s experiences 5) negative reactions to client's cultural content and 6) how participants navigated the cross-cultural treatment. The research found that culture was always in the room but frequently was not explored. As a result of the study, the participants grew in awareness about their cultural countertransference feelings, highlighting the importance of culturally-sensitive consultation when providing cross-cultural psychotherapy.

Keywords:

• cultural countertransference
• Asian-American culture
• cross-cultural psychotherapy
• cross-cultural differences;
• psychotherapeutic processes

Acknowledgments

This manuscript is based on data from my doctoral dissertation. I would like to thank The Sanville Institute for Clinical Social Work and Psychotherapy for providing me with an intellectual, clinical and emotional home and Alex Kivowitz, Ph.D., Samoan Barish, Ph.D. and Gitu Bhatia, Psy.D. for help in conducting this study. I’d also like to express appreciation to Catherine Nye, Ph.D., Professor Emerita at Smith College School for Social Work, for her ideas about the overlap of anthropology, culture and psychotherapy. Christina Mosher, Ed.D. rescued me many times as a copy editor and Judith K. Nelson, Ph.D. and Joanne Altschuler, Ph.D. guided me in the submission of the manuscript.