Transcultural Psychotherapy with Cambodian Refugees in Paris

Abstract

The major task in transcultural psychiatry is to combine culturally defined concepts of emotion and pathological behaviors with an individual's singular psychodynamic process. Focussing on the special role that translation plays in individual psychotherapeutic sessions, this paper describes the Southeast Asian psychiatric program created in 1990 in the Community Mental Health Service of the 13th district of Paris where approximately 200 Southeast Asian patients, most of them Cambodian, have been evaluated and treated. A case example illustrates how transcultural psychodynamic therapy with an interpreter is possible with Southeast Asian refugees. Although attention to the cultural background of patients is essential, the author emphasizes the importance of the individual manner in which patients deal with cultural material in the therapeutic process.