ABSTRACT

This chapter aims to extend psychoanalytic contributions to the understanding of culture and diversity as an essential component of psychoanalytic psychotherapy. It discusses how cultural competence has been defined in professional psychology, a critique of psychoanalytic approaches to social context, recent psychoanalytic scholarship that addresses issues of social identity, and the ways in which psychoanalytic theory can both be transformed by and transform existing understandings of cultural competence in professional psychology. Multiculturalism, identified as the "fourth force" in psychology, aims to "encourage inclusion and enhances our ability to recognize ourselves in others". Sigmund Freud and many other analysts lost their homes and were separated from loved ones, and were met with ambivalence in their new adoptive countries. The chapter outlines several approaches that build on existing psychoanalytic contributions, particularly those from relational theorists, and expand existing conceptualizations of cultural competence. In recent years, several psychoanalytic practitioners have initiated the application of psychoanalytic concepts in community interventions and nonclinical domains.