ABSTRACT
Family therapy can be focused from the outset on matters such as affection, communication, boundaries, and role division. Basic orientation towards marriage, divorce, and abortion are examples of value- and belief-laden attitudes which relate closely to family life and which will inevitably mold the direction of marital or family therapy. When the family to be treated is of a different cultural background from that of the therapist, cultural effects on the therapist-family relationship need to be closely examined from the very beginning of contact. F.L.K. Hsu emphasizes that with traditional Chinese families it is desirable for the therapy to be problem-oriented and focus on external factors in the initial stages of treatment. When the socio-cultural system of a group of people has been rapidly destroyed, families within that system will suffer from loss of their cultural roots, resulting in deterioration of the family as a whole.
