Citation

Miyaji NT. Transcult. Psychiatry 2002; 39(2): 173-195.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2002, McGill University, Publisher SAGE Publishing)

DOI

10.1177/136346150203900203

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Transcultural psychiatry needs new theories and methodologies to address a postmodern, postcolonial and creolizing world. This article argues for the need to direct attention towards clinicians’ shifting identities and fluid cultures, which significantly influence psychiatric practice. The impact of shifting identities on clinical work is explored using the author’s experience with two cases involving domestic violence. In the course of this exploration, key concepts of cultural psychiatry such as ‘culture’ and ‘family’ are contexualized and reconceptualized. Sensitivity to our own positionality in global as well as local power dynamics is essential to reinvigorate transcultural psychiatry.