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Standards in Intercultural Psychotherapy

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Abstract

With number of people migrating from one country to another and also within the same country increasingly, there are major issues emerging regarding their healthcare and how the system meets these. Studies have shown higher than expected rates of psychiatric disorders in some migrant groups but not necessarily in others. This variation may reflect better resilience in these groups. Intercultural therapy is based on principles of cultural variations between the therapist and the patients. In different modalities of therapies, different values can and will be placed on cultural similarities and cultural differences. Therefore it is important for the therapist to recognise unconscious bias and also cultural differences so that transference and counter-transference can be worked out. In this chapter we describe different types and modalities of psychotherapy and attempt to define the notion of key standards some of which may be easily measurable and others aspirational only. We explore types and levels of quality in psychotherapy and how these can be employed in intercultural settings. We describe challenges in using standards in therapy and further recommendations for future practice.

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Correspondence to Dinesh Bhugra .

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Montgomery, A., Ventriglio, A., Bhugra, D. (2020). Standards in Intercultural Psychotherapy. In: Schouler-Ocak, M., Kastrup, M. (eds) Intercultural Psychotherapy. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-24082-0_3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-24082-0_3

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