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It has generally been acknowledged that women patients have been cast in the mold of fantasies and desires therapists have had of them and for them: nurturing, passive, obedient, with more concern for others than herself. Continuous efforts are being made to remedy this cultural lag. Psychiatrists and professionals of various disciplines have made concerted efforts over the past two decades to alter stereotyping of women patients under the guise of scientific theory (Broverman et al., 1970; Chestir, 1972; Baker-Miller, 1973, 1982, 1983, 1984; Moulton, 1977; Seiden, 1976; Strouse, 1974; Leichnner and Kalin, 1981; Camero and Zebulon, 1983; Rubin, 1976, 1979; Stover, 1984; Kaplan, 1984). Along similar lines, psychiatrists and other mental health professionals are incorporating the findings of culturally based social values of patients (Everett et al., 1976; Favazza et al., 1977; Foulks et al., 1977; Leighton and Hughes, 1961; Mazer, 1976; Westmeyer, 1976; Wittkower and Prince, 1974; McGoldrick et al., 1982) in the course of psychotherapy. Although causation of mental illness by specific cultural factors cannot be shown (Dunham, 1976; Leff, 1981; Marsella and White, 1982; Linton, 1956; Greeley, 1974), relationships between ethnicity, personality development, and manifestations of psychological problems have been convincingly demonstrated in several studies (Leighton and Hughes, 1961; Mazer, 1976; Papajohn and Spiegel, 1975; Spiegel, 1971).
John Spiegel (1971, 1976) J. Papajohn (1975) and Kluckhohn (1961) have found that mental illness may be the product of culture clash between family members whose values are in different stages of dominant values of American middle-class culture. American
Dr. Goldstein is Clinical Associate Professor, State University of New York at Buffalo, School of Medicine, Dept. of Psychiatry, Erie County Medical Center.