Global Mental Health Issues: Culture and Psychopathology

This chapter begins with a definition of culture that is useful in exploring the issue of global mental health, followed by a delineation of approaches to clarify the interrelationship of culture and mental health. The chapter then examines current knowledge of mental disorders in low-resource contexts using approaches from anthropology (the culture-bound approach) and epidemiology (the cross-cultural or transnational approach). This is followed by discussion of both social behaviors and functionality, issues associated with mental health that are affected by the culture in which a person lives. What follows is an exploration of risk and resiliency factors, including an examination of the difficulty inherent in differentiating between culture-specific vulnerabilities and vulnerabilities associated more generally with the effects of poverty in a low-resource environment. Finally, the chapter delineates how culture and context can influence the selection and adaptation of behavioral interventions and treatments.