Читать книгу Ethics in Psychotherapy and Counseling - Kenneth S. Pope - Страница 73

Psychotherapy as a healing practice has existed for centuries in different cultures. However, the current practice of psychotherapy is often rooted in a Western philosophy with origins in Europe and the United States. Wampold (2001) explains that

The idea of sitting in a room with the healer, confiding in the healer, responding to questions, and following the implicit or explicit ritualistic expectations of the psychotherapeutic protocol, whether it is expressing one’s feelings, monitoring one’s thoughts, forming a contingency contract, or looking at the rapidly moving hands of the therapist, would be an absurdity in 99% of the societies past or present. On the other hand, participating in some healing practice is universal. As a healing practice, psychotherapy shares commonalities with medicine, but also with laying-on-of-hands, theriac, and shaman rituals. Psychotherapy is not universal; it has existed, in widely different forms, in some (but not all) Western cultures for about 100 years (p. 79).

There is also evidence that the Indigenous people of the Americas were using talk as a form of treatment for mental illness centuries before colonization. Padilla (1984) describes how the Aztecs had a well-developed system of public health that included healing services for mental health-related concerns where conversation was used to heal and care for others. He also wrote that

In essence it was believed that the tonalpouhqui [healer] had the knowledge and more authority to assist the patient by means of lengthy conversations designed to liberate them [from their ailments]. The personal characteristics and language of the tonalpouhqui were the major determinants for a successful outcome…The tonalpouhqui possessed concepts of ego formation and catharsis, as well as techniques of dream interpretation and psychotherapy similar to those developed later by Freud and Jung (p. 7).

These two passages exemplify the ways in which distinct cultural groups around the world used dialogue and other methods to connect and build relationship to address the problems of living. However, the common ways in which psychotherapy is currently practiced are not culturally universal. Consider current counseling practices prevalent in the US, Canada, and many other Western countries: 45 to 55-minute sessions, once a week, often taking place in an office setting or using a Zoom connection, typically between two people. Few would argue that these practices are universal or free of cultural influence. To a great extent, they reflect Western standards and values. If so, how do we form healing relationships with clients of other cultures for whom such practices are a barrier? What do we need to learn about ourselves, the groups we belong to, and other cultures in order to communicate and work more effectively with those from other cultures? The following sections provide some ways to address these complex, arduous, but crucial questions.