General mechanism and cultural diversity in psychotherapy:A comment / 中国心理卫生杂志

ABSTRACT

Psychotherapy is a sort of arts based on science following the general principles of social science and natural science.Meanwhile,the content of psychotherapy,the process of the practice,and the relationship be-tween the help-seekers and the helpers reflect substantial humanistic connotation and are bound up with cultural and subcultural transmission and reality context.This paper is a commentary on the article written by an Indonesian fel-low T.Citraningtyas discussing the mother's role in the matriarchal society and its modern meanings.We discussed that the phenomenon of being cultural extinctionalso presents in China.Although the main stream in Chinese cul-ture is still patriarchic familism,the remainder of matriarchal society still exists in the basic emotional models of parent-child relationship.The deprivation and frustration related with filial piety and kinship may cause the conse-quence of cultural extinctionin the individual level.Referring the theory of Wen-Shing Tseng on the mechanisms of the cultural influence on psychopathology,from the perspective of understanding psychology,we emphasized the importance of cultural empathy and recommended the systemic clinical thinking way of empathic considering and contextualizing.Last but not least,we discussed the second case of the overseas migrant workers and their left-at-home childrenin this article within Chinese context.Moreover,besides the 61 million left-at-home children in rural areas,there are a large amount of substitute-raised children by their grandparents who might be also in the risk of being impaired physically and psychologically.This problematic phenomenon may relate to the living stress and the cultural encouragement as well.By providing a critique discussion with the related theories of correlation of the in-secure attachment with psychological disorders in childhood and adulthood,this commentary encouraged humble learning from our Indonesian fellows and appealed for greater appreciation of separate mothers and their children a-mong Chinese clinicians.