Lijtmaer, R.M. (2001). Countertransference and Ethnicity: The Analyst’s Psychic Changes. J. Amer. Acad. Psychoanal., 29:73-83.abstract:

It is impossible to think of identity without its ethnic nature. A culturally influenced worldview is established in each individual, which is strongly grounded in by a growing assemble of symbolic rituals where specific cultural values are transmitted (Javier and Rendon, 1995). These basic belief systems and culturally specific ways of relating are programmed to provide the foundation for the development of identity. Ethnicity’s being part of our identity represents a combination of reality and fantasy that lends itself to psychoanalytic scrutiny.

In instances of individuals whose self-identity was influenced by a society that demands a different level of interaction than do the values of the Western culture, the nature of the transference-countertransference will be affected. The more dissimilar the respective worlds of the members of the dyad, the more the work must be undertaken as a joint search for understanding.