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Culture and Mental Health: Sociocultural Influences, Theory, and Practice

ISBN: 978-1-405-16982-0

January 2009

Wiley-Blackwell

368 pages

Description
Culture and Mental Health takes a critical look at the research pertaining to common psychological disorders, examining how mental health can be studied from and vary according to different cultural perspectives.
  • Introduces students to the main topics and issues in the area of mental health using culture as the focus
  • Emphasizes issues that pertain to conceptualization, perception, health-seeking behaviors, assessment, diagnosis, and treatment in the context of cultural variations
  • Reviews and actively encourages the reader to consider issues related to reliability, validity and standardization of commonly used psychological assessment instruments among different cultural groups
  • Highlights the widely used DSM-IV-TR categorization of culture-bound syndromes
About the Author
Sussie Eshun is a licensed psychologist and Professor of Psychology at East Stroudsburg University of Pennsylvania. In addition to clinical practice, she has several publications on the role of culture in suicide, depression, and stress. She has developed and taught several courses on culture, adjustment, and human development, and is a strong advocate for including empirical research on cultural diversity in the curriculum. She currently serves as Chair for the Commission on Racial and Ethnic Diversity at her campus and has been actively involved in workshops and seminars with the Office of Diversity at the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education's (PASSHE) chancellor's office. She has been awarded several diversity grants for mentoring ethnic minority high school students and also for recruitment and retention of diverse faculty.


Regan A. R. Gurung is Chair of the Human Development department and Professor of Human Development and Psychology at the University of Wisconsin, Green Bay. He is also Co-Director of the University of Wisconsin Green Bay Teaching Scholars Program, has been a UWGB Teaching Fellow, a UW System Teaching Scholar, and is winner of the Founder's Award for Excellence in Teaching and the Founder's Award for Excellence in Scholarship, as well as UW Teaching-at-its-Best, Creative Teaching, and Featured Faculty Awards. He is the author of two other books: Health Psychology: A Cultural Approach (2e, 2010) and Optimizing Teaching and Learning: Catalyzing Pedagogical Research (with Beth Schwartz), and is co-editor of two other books: Getting Culture? Best Practices for Incorporating Culture into the Curriculum (with Loreto Prieto), and Practicing our Signatures: Teaching Disciplinary Habits of Mind (with Nancy Chick and Aeron Haynie).

Features

  • Introduces students to the main topics and issues in the area of mental health using culture as the focus
  • Emphasizes issues that pertain to conceptualization, perception, health-seeking behaviors, assessment, diagnosis, and treatment in the context of cultural variations
  • Reviews and actively encourages the reader to consider issues related to reliability, validity and standardization of commonly used psychological assessment instruments among different cultural groups
  • Highlights the widely used DSM-IV-TR categorization of culture-bound syndromes