Culture and psychotherapy: Toward a hermeneutic approach.

Despite the growing awareness of cultural differences and the challenges of multicultural counseling, critics have noted that understandings of culture within psychology remain largely cursory. Philosophical hermeneutics help to remedy this situation by offering a comprehensive theory of culture that (a) details how the self is embedded in culture, (b) highlights culture's inherently moral nature, and (c) shows how cultural conflict be can be mediated through dialogue. Hermeneutics provides a means of thinking interpretively about cultural meanings and discerning their specific manifestations. It can be utilized by psychotherapists not only to help understand clients from different cultural backgrounds but also to better recognize how the dominant Western cultural outlook—individualism—influences psychotherapy theory, research, and practice.