Closing the loops

Question 1

Why do we have to consider culture in clinical practice?

Answer 1

Understand INFLUENCE OF CULTURE on how psychological symptoms are expressed

Understand the CULTURAL IDENTITY of individual clients

Be aware of CULTURAL
EXPLANATIONS of individual differences

Understand CULTURAL EXPECTATIONS related to psychological experience

Be mindful of CULTURAL ELEMENTS of the relationship between the individual and the clinician.

Question 2

What did Hippocrates do?

Answer 2

Rejected supernatural theories of psychopathology
Proposed biological, psychological, and social/environmental were key to mental illness, prevention, and treatment
Described many mental illnesses we know today

Question 3

Describe the “wandering womb” and hysteria

Answer 3

A condition that could only affect women. Used to pathologise female non-conforming behaviour
Symptoms included faintness, paralysis, choking. Treatment was scent therapy, sex, or pregnancy.

Question 4

What was Drapetomia?

Answer 4

A mental illness for black slaves, that caused them to run away from enslavement.

Question 5

Define culturally-bound symptoms

Answer 5

A group of co-occurring, relatively invariant symptoms that are found in a specific cultural group, community, or context.
Often has a cultural explanation, name, treatment

Question 6

What is longing for country?

Answer 6

Problems associated with spiritual disconnection. Aboriginal people experience it when separated or removed from traditional lands.

Question 7

How does the Power, Threat, Meaning Framework work? (PTMF)

Answer 7

Psychopathology is not treated as a medical condition
Instead, psychopathology is thought to be a patterned response to social, cultural, and psychological factors.
The PTMF emphasises the role of power, threat, and the meaning people make of the psychological stress.