Cultural Considerations In Mental Health. All Cultures

The research problem I am interested in studying is mental health in Southeast Asian Community. Growing up, my mother suffered from major depression and younger brother with bipolar disorder. However, my parents would not acknowledge and does not believe that talking to medical professional with help them. My brother joined a gang and was getting involved in criminal activities in middle school. He went to juvenile hall to group homes, prison and then moved to Minnesota to live with his friends. Based off my personal experiences, I believe that Southeast Asian individuals need become aware of mental health rather than thinking it is only for crazy individuals. I’m interested in studying of the need and problem of mental health in the Southeast Asian community. I would conduct a qualitatively research. I would like to understand the reasons of why Southeast Asian individuals opinions of mental health issues. Since mental health illness is viewed as a weakness, I would like to find new techniques to help counsel the Southeast Asian Community.

Introduction The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, by Anne Fadiman (1997), is a book that details the complicated journey of Lia Lee and her family, who were Hmong refugees living in Merced, California. Lia had a severe form of epilepsy that caused her to have many hospital visits and interactions with the health care system, where she received subpar care because of the language and cultural differences between the health care providers and her Hmong family. This paper will identify one social issue illuminated by Fadiman's (1997) case study and suggest one practice and one policy change at each of the micro, mezzo, and macro system levels. Furthermore, each social issue and corresponding practice and policy change is tied to the central

There is not doubt that every culture perceives illness in a different ways. In the first scenario the patient is an 80 years old Vietnamese female with a diagnosis of colon cancer and receiving many visitors. Additionally, different kind of treatment has been explained but she refused the and medications as well. She remains quit and only want to be with her husband and son. All this behavior could be consider normal for a Vietnamese patient. To begin with, the Vietnamese have deferent perceptions on why they could be ill. They believe in spiritual causes, imbalances or caused by pathogens. The patient’s refusal of medications and treatment could be because a few believes that Vietnamese patient have towards western medicine (Dayer-Berenson,

THE IMPACT OF CULTURE ON MENTAL HEALTH AND HOW THIS CAN AFFECT THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEN THE HEALTH CARE PROVIDER AND THE CLIENT

Growing up, I spent summers visiting my family in Germany. There remains a hesitance to seek therapy due in part to the oppression during Nazi-rule. Information was not confidential and anyone that was deemed to have mental illness was at risk of being euthanized, sterilized, or used in experiments. I visited Russia for study abroad for one month. The culture there also has its differences, such as openly profiling. The reason that I am discussing these different cultures is because I believe that psychology is universal, being that there are so many different aspects to cultural behaviors. Even in Asia, the use of mindfulness is a part of Buddhism, which has slowly gained momentum in the Western philosophy of treatment.

One is the Universalist view, where there are similarities in mental illnesses across all culture but the expression of the disorders differs. The other view is cultural relativists, in which some disorders are unique to a culture and these disorders are commonly only understood from the cultural perspective. Culture plays a part in deciding how serious an illness is, an illness that occurs commonly in the United States may not be viewed as serious as if the illness was in another country that was not as familiar with the illness. I believe culture plays a very large part in the acceptance and standards on mental illness.

Mental health is defined as “the successful adaptation to stressors from the internal or external environment, evidenced by thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that are age-appropriate and congruent with local and cultural norms” (Townsend, 2015a, p. 15). Mental illness, on the other hand, refers to the “maladaptive responses to stressors from the internal or external environment, evidenced by thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that are incongruent with the local and cultural norms, and that interfere with the individual’s social occupational and/or physical functioning” (Townsend, 2015a, p. 16).

If there is risk of harm to self and others than it is the clinician’s duty of care to disclose it. Thorough and systematic evaluation of risk for suicide and self harm is imperative for safety planning and decision making for treatment. Harm minimisation responses must be specific to the client’s unmet needs. It is important to educate the client about online help forums in case of emergency and for later support. Liaison with other health practitioners and follow-up are part of management plans. If the clinician sees the need for referral than that must be addressed with the client’s consent.

War is hard on anyone involved; however, it is especially hard on the children who are forced to live with it or in close proximity to it. Children typically lack the worldview to process the level of violence that occurs during war. The Nigerian children who were rescued from the refugee camp lived in extremely poor conditions and before arriving there were subjected to serious events that may change them forever. They are likely suffering from some severe psychological effects of war-time violence that need to be addressed in order to break the cycle of violence they may be in, but also to ensure their mental health both now and in the future. There are several aspects of psychological recovery that need to be

Overall, the health of Americans has improved over the past several decades. However, there is still an inconsistency between the health of various racial groups, minorities, and Caucasians (Cook, Kosoko-Lasaki, & O'Brien, R., 2005). Bakullari et al. (2014) report that specific research related to patient safety and racial and ethnic differences in HAIs is also lacking. As a result of these discrepancies, Bakullari et al. (2014) implemented a study to determine the rate and occurrence of HAIs in six specific racial/ethnic groups (white non-Hispanic, black non-Hispanic, Asian, Hispanic, Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander, and other). What they found was that Hispanic and Asian populations had a significantly higher occurrence of HAIs than white non-Hispanic populations (Bakullari et al., 2014).

Many cultural beliefs and values are held about mental illness and health in Americans of

Culture has a great effect on attitudes toward therapy. According to the National Institution of Mental Health each individual or groups of people bring a variation of beliefs to the therapeutic setting such as communicating what issues to report, types of coping styles, social support, and cultural stigma towards mental health. More often it is culture that bears on whether or not an individual will seek help. For example there is a widespread tendency to stigmatize mental illness in Asian countries. People with mental illness are considered dangerous and create social distance and

Mental health illnesses affect everyone. It is highly prevalent affecting people of all ages, gender, cultures, and social groups. Attitudes towards mental health illnesses vary among individuals and often are highly influenced by the various cultures that the individuals identify with. Culture as a social concept can be defined as a set of norms, values, behaviours, and beliefs that are common and shared amongst a group of individuals (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 1999). Culture can be applicable to groups like Asians and Americans but also to groups of shared norms, beliefs, and values established within professions such as the culture of patients and practitioners. Culture provides these groups with structure and context to understanding their society and the world as a whole. Culture influence a wide range of aspects of mental health, including how mental health is perceived by the patient, how the patient will experience mental health stigma, and how they cope with symptoms of mental health illness. Additionally, these cultural influences impact the relationship between the patient and the practitioner in a number of ways.

The patient expressed she has no current suicidal ideation or homicidal ideation. However, she admitted to suicidal ideation in the past, right after her breakup, approximately two months ago. She expressed that she wanted to hurt herself and had a plan on how to do so, but did not think she could go through with it. Her plan was to overdose by taking her mother’s

The United States has their own view on mental illness when compared to other developed countries. The developed countries that were analyzed with the United States were England and France. Our research question was “Does the United States view mental illness differently than other developed countries?” The research that I conducted was over the policies and ideologies of mental illness in the United States.