Abstract

Process in Cross-Cultural A SymposiumPerspective-HE COMMITTEE on Transcultural Psychiatry arranged a session of the 122nd annual meeting of the American Psychiatric Association (held in Atlantic City, N. J., May 9-13, 1966) which was devoted to “The Therapeutic Process in Cross-Cultural Perspective.” Among the participants were: Alexander H. Leighton, M.D. (chairman), professor of social psychiatry and head of the department of behavioral sciences, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, Mass. 02115, speaking on “Fragments from a Navaho Ceremonial.” Raymond Prince, M.D., assistant professor of psychiatry, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Can., speaking on “Psychotherapy Without Insight: An Example from the Yoruba of Nigeria.” Rollo May, Ph.D., training and supervisory analyst, William Alanson White Institute of Psychiatry, Psychoanalysis, and Psychology, New York, N. Y., speaking on “The Healing Power of Myth.” Their papers are abstracted below.This issue is one of many vexing problems currently at the edge of psychiatric knowledge. What is the borderline between disorder and nondisorder-particularly in such conditions as psychoneurosis and personality disturbance? What are the criteria for determining when a person has crossed over this line? Are there environmental factors which selectively force people over this line? How can one tell when a person emerges from a