ABSTRACT

This chapter begins with a discussion of traditional and modern approaches to knowledge. It addresses critical issues regarding the definition of social science; the relationship between social science and traditional culture; inter-relationships among culture, class, and psychotherapy; and the practice of psychoanalytic interpretation and its cultural significance. The chapter describes an alternative postmodern epistemological framework that could prove more effective in the understanding and treatment of ethnic minorities. It focuses on the application of this framework to the clinical process, using Lacanian principles, and includes a redefinition of the psychoanalytic concept of insight more in keeping with the concept of the unconscious and with the conception of knowledge found in traditional cultures. The chapter argues that the problem is rooted not solely in relative cultural differences but also in the larger conflict between modern and traditional paradigms, as well as in the epistemological underpinnings of empiricist social science culture.