Mental Health and Culture

Culture's Influence On The Perception And Diagnosis Of Mental Illness

The article by Sam & Moreira (2002) provides an analysis of how culture is related to the concept of mental health based on different nations. The way that cultures understand mental health differs from one culture to another, which justifies the need to understand the anthropological aspects involved when it comes to cross-cultural studies involving culture. The article states that the cause of a condition in one culture is different in another culture. The biological perspective towards mental health is the order in the western nations, but this is not the case in the Asian and African cultures where spirits are blamed for most of the things. This means that mental health is seen as a cultural problem that can only be solved using social means like rituals and ceremonies to deal with the spiritual issues of mental illnesses. However, due to the limitation of translation and transportation that is associated with the cross-cultural studies, a lot is lost in the process, which means that the role of culture in the constitution of behavior in regards to mental illness is not addressed in the right manner. However, mental health is a concept that has a cultural meaning as shown through the cultures in Asia and Africa.

Relevance

The article is relevant in that it provides a new dimension that the learner can use to understand the psychology of mental illnesses. The examples provided on how culture relates to mental health instill a discussion in the mind of the learner of whether those cultures are wrong or if the western way of understanding mental health as an individual problem is the right way. Similarly, the article is relevant as it highlights the limitations that researchers have brought in regards to the issue of culture and its relation to the mental health (Gone, 2013).

Reflection

It is clear that poor and the homeless people handle many things differently unlike the rest of the society. For example, they tend to blame the misfortunes facing them such as illnesses as the causes of other people and not as their individuals. Similarly, when one is ill, they tend to handle it as a community issue as compared to the fortunate members of the society who do not handle the problem as communal but as individuals (Heine, 2015). It is clear that they tend to seek divine interventions on some of their problems instead of visiting the right institutions for treatment such as hospitals. Prayer and rituals are common among the poor and the homeless as they seek answers to their problems. This means that culture takes center stage in their lives, which is different in other families in the country who are fortunate to succeed or who can have access to other institutions. Just like the issue of culture in mental health, poverty adopts the same approach. Most of those involved in the research believed that their misfortunes could be blamed on evil spirits that could only be removed using prayer and rituals from those people who are anointed by the gods. In the case of a mental case, the homeless believed that such as person could only be healed through having to perform some rituals to cleanse him. Most of them argued that lack of funds to seek medical attention is to blame for their desire to seek another leeway through which their problems can be solved. Therefore, the role of culture in shaping the diagnosis of mental illnesses is pronounced.