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This is an important book which has a broader relevance to psychotherapists than its title suggests. In an academically rigorous style (the bibliography itself runs to 13 pages), and drawing on her own experience as an anthropologist and systemic (family) therapist, Inga-Britt Krause shows how ethnographic methodology (fieldwork) and its research findings can be drawn on to radically deepen our clinical insight into ‘difference’. While anthropologists now largely accept that there is a universal dimension to unconscious oedipal conflict, they also assert that there are culturally distinctive paths towards its resolution. For example, in Hindu culture, where the resolution of the Oedipus complex involves an internal identification with the group rather than with the parent, submission to rather than overthrow of paternal authority is a sign of masculinity.
Krause suggests that meanings have to do with representation. Language provides for, but does not encompass the complexity of cognitive and emotional processes and their dynamic expression. As therapists we need to gain ‘background understanding’ of the ‘ethos’ or ‘habitus’ of our patients. This takes us into the realm of culture ‘as related to emotions, kinship relations, ritual and taboo (which) are located on the boundary between the internal life of an individual and the external world of relationships, customs and institutions’ (p. 140).
In Euro-American countries power lies with the white therapist trained in the disciplines and theories dominated by Euro-American philosophy. As meaning is heterodox, ‘it is always possible that the most powerful will persuade, command or even terrorize the less powerful’ (p. 153).
As therapists we need to be curious
about the social relationships, the institutions, the professional theories, the professional organizations and the history of the society or societies which have provided the background and context for our own personal and professional life and experiences (p. 167).
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