ABSTRACT
The use of vocabulary in everyday speech, and meanings given by therapists and clients to thoughts, beliefs, and emotions, differs from culture to culture. The popularity of the Freudian approach may also related to ‘fortune-telling’ for Middle Easterners. Some Middle Eastern clients want to hear childhood ‘secrets’ about themselves, using psychoanalysis, but they miss the point that their problems are created by their thoughts and not their unconscious secrets. Turkey is relatively more open to new psychotherapy approaches than other Middle Eastern countries. The former receives a more humanistic education, relying more heavily on verbal communication and psychology, whereas the latter focuses on biology and the chemistry of the human body. Turkey, the lack of availability of cognitive behavior therapy training is changing rapidly in big cities, such as Istanbul and Ankara. Clients from an Islamic cultural background have a different perception of psychological disorders and treatment. Middle Eastern cultures prefer didactic disputing over a Socratic one.
