Discusses cultural and language factors that may interfere in family psychotherapy, including fear of strangers, the defensive character of the original language, and the presence of bilingualism and/or biculturalism. Case histories of psychotherapy of Arab-Moslem families are presented to illustrate the importance of multigenerational attendance at psychotherapy sessions and the free choice of the language of communication. Techniques for dealing with the difficulties inherent in cross-cultural psychotherapy are described.