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It is impossible to think of identity without its ethnic nature. A culturally influenced worldview is established in each individual, which is strongly grounded in by a growing assemble of symbolic rituals where specific cultural values are transmitted (Javier and Rendon, 1995). These basic belief systems and culturally specific ways of relating are programmed to provide the foundation for the development of identity. Ethnicity's being part of our identity represents a combination of reality and fantasy that lends itself to psychoanalytic scrutiny.
In instances of individuals whose self-identity was influenced by a society that demands a different level of interaction than do the values of the Western culture, the nature of the transference-countertransference will be affected. The more dissimilar the respective worlds of the members of the dyad, the more the work must be undertaken as a joint search for understanding. The analyst needs to exercise particular caution against applying personal assumptions and metapsychology about minds at large. Whether the analyst's attitudes fall within the range of despondency, sadness, or guilt over the patient's life circumstances, or whether the analyst's reactions run the spectrum of puzzlement, fear, ethnic prejudice, or dislike, they will be detectable by the patient. These reactions demand scrutiny and can be a critical point of contact with the patient's transference, conflicts, and resistance. Confronted with a patient of different ethnic background, the analyst is compelled to look at assumptions and fantasies about the other and not to rely on the analyst's own ethnicity as the primary source of identity.
I present the clinical case of a Chinese patient with a Latino therapist, but first it is important to address issues related to the patient's culture.