[2][3][4][5][6][7][8] Critical reviews were positive and encouraging by leaders in family therapy, such as Mara Selvini Palazzoli[9] and Celia Jaes Falicov,[10] as well as those in transcultural psychiatry, such as Armando Favazza.

The book recounts over two dozen family "stories" varying from brief vignettes and cameo portraits to longer, more detailed multigenerational narratives.

The need for multiple descriptions of predicaments; two basic therapeutic temperaments (technocratic and phenomenological); and problems with family therapy across cultures.

The second conceptual tool of CFT is "masks" or cultural costume and camouflage, inspired by the work of family therapist Edwin Friedman.

The third conceptual tool of CFT is about "roles" of insiders and outsider, describing how the therapist positions in relation to the family.

The relationship between culture and mental illness is reviewed and culture-change syndromes are defined and illustrated with clinical vignettes of children with selective mutism.

Two aspects are examined: (1) how independence is enshrined as a goal in Western family therapy, (2) how this differs in India and Japan.

This illustrates the implications of the myth of independence and identifies the sixth conceptual tool of CFT—"bridges"—or understanding the family life cycle in cultural context.

Working with a Portuguese immigrant family illustrates the potential for narrative transformation, the eighth conceptual tool of CFT—"multiple codes"—multiple messages encoded in metaphor (figurative language) and somatics (embodied meaning).

[18] Di Nicola continued to elaborate his model of cultural family therapy in articles, chapters,[19] a follow-up volume, Letters to a Young Therapist: Relational Practices for the Coming Community,[20] as well as invitations to present the 4th Annual Stokes Endowment Lecture in family studies at The George Washington University[21] and a thirty-year perspective on his model presented at McGill University where he first developed it[22] and the Accademia di Psicoterapia della Famiglia in Rome, Italy where Di Nicola's model is taught.