Clinical Methods in Transcultural Psychiatry: Edited by Samuel O. Okpaku,  American Psychiatry Press, Washington, DC, 1998,  458 pp.

Clinical Methods in Transcultural Psychiatry fills one of the most glaring voids in the psychiatric literature and in psychiatric training programs, namely, the lack of a sufficiently concise, yet adequately comprehensive and clinically relevant textbook on understanding that effectively deals with the transcultural treatment relationship. Publication of this outstanding book, consisting of contributions written by an eminent international group of clinicians and edited by Samuel Okpaku, M.D., Ph.D., is a most welcome event.

An underlying theme of this book is that most, if not all of the relevance of the concept of transcultural psychiatry is predicated on the significance of the details and patterns of life experience in the development of mental health, illness, and treatment. Were mental illness, however defined, primarily a matter of genetics, neurochemistry, neuroendocrinology, and neurophysiology, it is doubtful that a textbook on transcultural psychiatry would be sufficiently relevant to justify the effort. Precisely because the phenomena and experiences that we signify as “mental”, “psychological”, “emotional”, or “behavioral” largely result from the impact and meaning of life's experiences and relationships on and to each person, transcultural psychiatry is a valid