Practising family therapy in India: How many people are there in a marital subsystem?

Abstract

Systemic therapy would appear to be a viable form of treatment for people who exist in cultures that contain complex, extended family systems, such as those found in India. The practice of family therapy in India has evolved from Western concepts. These concepts appear to offer Indian therapists relevant and practical ways of working with families. However, some of these concepts need modifying before they can be used in an Indian context. Indian families may have very different worldviews and ideas of 'self' compared to families in the West, leading to different family organization. The situation can be further complicated by the cultural norms of therapists themselves. Therapists in India are often highly educated, come from upper-middle-class families and have been exposed to different cultures. They increasingly share many of the values of their counterparts in the West. At the same time, they retain aspects of their own cultural heritage, which is also the dominant culture for a large number of the families with whom they work. Thus, not only must Indian family therapists seek to work in culturally appropriate ways; they must also tolerate their own internalized conflicts regarding differing cultural norms. With the use of clinical data, this paper describes some of the personal and professional problems experienced by an Indian family therapist working with Western constructs of family organization.