ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author illustrates his experiences as a non-western family therapist in an integrated healthcare clinic through his own sociocultural, political, and historical lens, and explains his experiences in a supervisory context. He shows that the term non-western clinicians, including family therapists, refers to those whose sociocultural and political developmental experiences are different from, or in some cases against, the dominant cultural norms and values in western countries, particularly those of the US. Since moving to the US as a non-western student and then studying a doctorate in Marriage and Family Therapy, becoming a family therapist, always there has been a feeling, presumably fear. A similar process takes place in supervision when supervisees may be asked to share their stories of illness or asked to illustrate their individual or family experiences of illness in genogram formats and discuss their effects.
