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MY
PROFESSION - |
Sudha
Chavda. Hillingdon
Part 3 |
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Culture and concepts of mental illness Because
of all the stresses already mentioned we might suppose that minority
groups would all have high rates of mental disorder. This is not the
case. A person who is distressed or cannot cope only becomes a psychiatric
patient if he or she produces symptoms that are not only abnormal but
fall into the particular category that society and medical profession
choose to call "illness". When a member of an ethnic minority
develops a mental illness, the manifestations MAY be very much the same
as in the British -born patient. But they MAY be different, and then
there is a danger of misdiagnosis and wrong treatment. A person may
behave in ways, which seem odd or bizarre to the practitioner, and lead
him to suppose that mental illness is present, when in fact the behaviour
is culturally normal or explicable. The cultural background and life
experiences of such a client influence his habitual response, reaction
to stress, concepts of normality, deviance and illness and attitudes
to other people. Different cultures set different boundaries on what
is to be regarded as mental illness and what should be done about it.
One has to try and understand unfamiliar behavioural problems, due to
social or cultural upbringing and which is NOT necessarily evidence
of mental illness. |
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