Culture and Mental Health

Multiculturalism is the only way humanity as a whole can be greater than the sum of its parts. If we want to avoid being shaken in a monoculture "melting pot" This requires us all to recognize, tolerate and work with different interpretations of some of the things we hold most precious. (Lloyd 1999)One of these things is health. The interaction between culture and the health is very complex and invites consideration of a kaleidoscope of causes, experiences, expressions and treatments for a plethora of human diseases. We must resist empirically stereotyping people as if they were "cultural idiots" whose behavior conforms to an abstract type "cultural". Individuals should not be relegated to mere transmitters of culture, but recognized as active sieve ideas presented to them by their family, community and social context and broader culture. Already we have taken as implicit assumptions and definitions such as the meaning of culture, the words "and" health ".

5 ways that culture influences the clinical reality

1. The public perception of a crisis in health care consists of a number of cost components intolerable ($ 2,188 per family in 1975) the inaccessibility of medical care because of poor locality, and distribution specialty and dissatisfaction with the "quality" of the medical meeting when it occurs

Paradoxically, this comes at a time when the medical biotechnology has dramatically increased its potential to make a decisive difference in the meetings of each patient.

2. Without denying the importance of biomedical research continues, it is our contention that traditional research methods are often unrelated to the solutions of the problems described above

3. Only if we are able to conceptualize problems in terms appropriate to their analysis are of a nature to make progress towards their resolution. In this enterprise, cross-cultural studies of health practices and anthropological studies of American culture of health can make a significant contribution. As we are liberated from ethnocentric "medicocentric" points of view, we can begin to recognize the important issues that have hitherto been systematically ignored.

4. The medical encounter is a step in a sequence more inclusive. The disease process begins with self-consciousness of a change of heart in body and continues with the labeling of the victim's family or by themselves as "sick". Personal and family action is undertaken to bring about recovery, advice is sought from members of the extended family or community, and professional and marginal practitioners are consulted.

5. An estimated ...