ABSTRACT
This chapter outlines the ways in which a Western approach to psychotherapy can cause difficulties in the treatment of such clients. It provides a suggested model of psychotherapy that is more appropriate for working with clients from a traditional culture seeking psychological treatment. Western theories of personality describe the nature of the individual in terms of inner psychological constructs and intrapsychic processes. Western psychotherapy assumes that intrapsychic conflicts or repression are the major problems that warrant intervention. Psychodynamic psychotherapy contends that in order to reduce psychological symptoms and distress, clients must become aware of their internal conflicts that are unconscious and have been repressed. Cognitive therapy, such as rational emotive therapy, attempts to accomplish emotional and behavioral change by altering the way the client perceives events. The overriding consensus of all schools of Western psychotherapy is the belief in the individual and the promotion of self-efficacy, self-expression, and self-actualization.
