Sameness and Otherness

The challenges of working with others who seem the same or different to us are explored, with assumptions of sameness being proposed as the more hidden problem. Understanding ourselves and others culturally is seen as necessary, but constrained. Otherness is viewed as remaining ultimately beyond reach. Experiences of cultural differences and otherness, from the life of the author, are used to question the commonly drawn distinction between intra-cultural and cross-cultural therapy. Alternative models of culture are explored: principally, Celia Falicov’s multidimensional model and Dave Elder-Vass’ concept of norm circles. Two case examples illustrate the difficulty of working with culture and the need to learn about oneself along the way.