Culturally Responsive Clinical Psychology and Psychiatry: An Ecosocial Approach (original) (raw)

Culture, mental health and psychiatry

While mental illness has recently been framed in largely neurobiological terms as “brain disease,” there has also been an increasing awareness of the contingency of psychiatric diagnoses. In this course, we will draw upon readings from medical and psychological anthropology, cultural psychiatry, and science studies to examine this paradox and to examine mental health and illness as a set of subjective experiences, social processes and objects of knowledge and intervention. On a conceptual level, the course invites students to think through the complex relationships between categories of knowledge and clinical technologies (in this case, mainly psychiatric ones) and the subjectivities of persons living with mental illness. Put in slightly different terms, we will look at the multiple links between psychiatrists’ professional accounts of mental illness and patients' experiences of it. Questions explored include: Does mental illness vary across social and cultural settings? How are experiences of people suffering from mental illness shaped by psychiatry’s knowledge of their afflictions?

A cultural-ecosocial systems view for psychiatry

Frontiers in Psychiatry, 2023

While contemporary psychiatry seeks the mechanisms of mental disorders in neurobiology, mental health problems clearly depend on developmental processes of learning and adaptation through ongoing interactions with the social environment. Symptoms or disorders emerge in specific social contexts and involve predicaments that cannot be fully characterized in terms of brain function but require a larger social-ecological view. Causal processes that result in mental health problems can begin anywhere within the extended system of body-person-environment. In particular, individuals' narrative self-construal, culturally mediated interpretations of symptoms and coping strategies as well as the responses of others in the social world contribute to the mechanisms of mental disorders, illness experience, and recovery. In this paper, we outline the conceptual basis and practical implications of a hierarchical ecosocial systems view for an integrative approach to psychiatric theory and practice. The culturalecosocial systems view we propose understands mind, brain and person as situated in the social world and as constituted by cultural and self-reflexive processes. This view can be incorporated into a pragmatic approach to clinical assessment and case formulation that characterizes mechanisms of pathology and identifies targets for intervention.

Culture, Psychiatry and Cultural Competence

Mental Illnesses - Understanding, Prediction and Control, 2012

Why the study of culture and its clinical application is important in mental health training and service? Mental health and illness is a set of subjective experience and a social process and thus involves a practice of culture-congruent care. Series of anthropological, sociological and cross-cultural research has clearly demonstrated a very strong ground in favour of this contention. An individual's cultural background colours every facets of illness, from linguistic or

Culture and mental health: Towards cultural competence in mental health delivery

2019

The purpose of this paper is to highlight the role of culture in the conceptualization of mental illness and the phenomenology of mental illness across cultures. Mental health professionals are increasingly dealing with a multicultural patient population and there is an urgent need for awareness of the influence of culture in understanding patient’s expression of distress, assigning symptoms to a diagnostic category and planning treatment in culturally appropriate ways. Cultural bias can lead to misdiagnosis and have devastating consequences on patients. This paper highlights the need for cultural competency in mental health service delivery and outlines ways mental health professionals can think about the issue of culture in their practice. Journal of Health and Social Sciences 2020; 5,1:023-034 The Italian Journal for Interdisciplinary Health and Social Development

Bridging culture and psychopathology in mental health care

European Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, 2016

and culture as much as biology. Cultural psychiatry is an important speciality that still reflects on the universality or cross-cultural applicability of psychiatry theory and practice. "Culture" can be defined in a variety of ways. The most used definition corresponds to its current use in anthropology: "cultures consists of the 'shared elements' involved in 'perceiving, believing, evaluating, communicating, and acting' that are passed down from generation to generation with modifications" [4]. Culture is not a static concept: it is, on the contrary, by definition constantly evolving.

Cultural Awareness and Responsiveness in Person-Centered Psychiatry

Cultural awareness, knowledge, and responsiveness are essential components of person-centered psychiatry. The construct of culture refers to the systems of knowledge, values, institutions, and practices that constitute social institutions, including families, communities, and societies. Culture and social context influence the causes of psychiatric disorders by creating identities and social positions that may differentially expose individuals to social stressors including racism, discrimination, and forms of structural violence, as well as to positive social support and resources that promote health, resilience, and well-being. Culture shapes symptom experience, and expression as well as modes of coping and the social response of others in ways that affect the recognition, diagnosis, and treatment of mental health problems. The course and outcome of psychiatric disorders depend on the interplay between culturally mediated processes of individual psychology, family and community dynamics, and relationships with the larger society. In this chapter, we outline current thinking about the role of culture in mental health and illness and review approaches to integrating attention to culture and social context in person-centered care. We discuss some specific tools and strategies for culturally informed assessment and treatment and outline some issues for culturally responsive mental health services, health care policy, and mental health promotion.

Culture, mental health and psychiatry - Spring 2024

While mental illness has recently been framed in largely neurobiological terms as brain disease, there has also been an increasing awareness of the contingency of psychiatric diagnoses. In this course, we will draw upon readings from medical and psychological anthropology, cultural psychiatry, and science studies to examine this paradox and to examine mental health and illness as a set of subjective experiences, social processes and objects of knowledge and intervention. On a conceptual level, the course invites students to think through the complex relationships between categories of knowledge and clinical technologies (in this case, mainly psychiatric ones) and the subjectivities of persons living with mental illness. Put in slightly different terms, we will look at the multiple links between psychiatrists’ professional accounts of mental illness and patients' experiences of it. Questions explored include: Does mental illness vary across social and cultural settings? How are experiences of people suffering from mental illness shaped by psychiatry’s knowledge of their afflictions?

The Future of Cultural Psychiatry along with its Epidemiology and Various Challenges

The Future of Cultural Psychiatry, 2023

Cultural Psychiatry is a branch of psychiatry that entails the connection between different mental disorders and their cultural context. It also includes the methods in which people of different ethnic groups are treated by mental health workers. They are socialized in such ways that are generally possessed by cultures known as ‘dominant culture’. This essay dwells on the Future of Cultural Psychiatry, its epidemiology, and various challenges it faces. Discussing some aspects of the epidemiology of Cultural Psychiatry, modern research and studies suggest that faith, spirituality, and mental health ideologies play an important part in the determination of mental health. Sometimes religious experiences can explain certain mental disorders and conditions. The most important factors to look for in mentally ill people are poverty, stigma, sexism, and the power gap in therapeutic partnerships. Looking at future prospects in this field, Cultural Psychiatry can help improve general Psychiatry and would help devise more appropriate methods and procedures for clinical practices. It is clear that it will assist in understanding human diversity better. However, cultural psychiatry faces numerous challenges, such as the understanding of “culturally sensitive clinical interview” and the need to have cultural diversity at all types of administrative levels to apply cultural psychiatry in the field of clinical medicine. Thus, clinical psychiatry demonstrates a good prospect in the field of clinical medicine, if the challenges faced by it are dealt properly.