1 - History and Scope

Abstract

This chapter presents the history and future scope of cultural psychiatry. Cultural psychiatry, a special field of psychiatry, is primarily concerned with the cultural aspects of human behavior, mental health, psychopathology, and treatment. At the clinicallevel, cultural psychiatry aims to promote culturally relevant mental health care for patients of diverse ethnic or cultural backgrounds. This includes culturally relevant assessment and understanding of psychopathologies and psychological problems, and culturally appropriate care and treatment. In terms of research, cultural psychiatry is interested in how ethnic or cultural factors may influence human behavior and psychopathology, as well as the art of healing. On a theoreticallevel, cultural psychiatry aims to expand the knowledge of human behavior and mental problems transculturally, in order to facilitate the development of more universally applicable and cross-culturally valid theories. Many cultural psychiatric organizations have been established at national levels during the past two decades. For instance, the Society for the Study of Psychiatry and Culture (SSPC) was founded in the United States in 1979. Cultural psychiatry, as a subfield of psychiatry, does not focus on any special population of patients, as does child/adolescent psychiatry, geriatric psychiatry, or addiction psychiatry. While it may be more immediately useful in the care of ethnic minorities, immigrants, and refugees from other cultures, the knowledge and skill provided by it should be applied to all patients, including those from majority groups and from all other ethnic/cultural backgrounds. Similarly to social or biological psychiatry, cultural psychiatry exists as a unique branch of psychiatry, with its main orientation and focus on the cultural dimensions of psychiatric knowledge and practice.