Limits of Cultural Awareness: The Immigrant as Therapist

An examination of the limits to the cultural awareness of immigrant therapists raises questions about the context and boundaries of “professional” knowledge. The paper examines alternative models of the therapeutic encounter available to therapists and the influence of personal background and experience on the therapists' actual views of that encounter. Concentrating on verbal expressions as reflections of the therapists' conceptualizations of themselves within the therapeutic encounter, the study finds that most of the therapists seem to ignore or gloss cultural differences in talking about their work, while referring frequently to these same differences in talking about their personal experiences as immigrants.