An Effective Analytical Psychotherapy in Crosscultural Context: An East Asian Student in the United States

This article presents brief analytic psychotherapy that was highly effective for a severe anxiety disorder with panic in a female college student from East Asia. In this therapy, it was necessary to separate analytical technics from their culturally characteristic Western premises on life, while acknowledging the premises of the culture of her origin.

The case presented here illustrates the crosscultural effectiveness of a properly applied psychodynamic psychotherapy for patients with an East Asian background in an English-speaking environment. What is essential in such an application is that the approach be separated from underlying, characteristically Western, in particular Anglo-American, premises on life.