How Culture Is Considered in Evaluations of Psychopathology

Abstract

A mail survey was conducted to explore how mental health professionals take culture into account in their evaluations of psychopathology and to assess their reported attitudes toward the role of culture in their work. The respondents were 118 licensed social workers, psychologists, and psychiatrists from the state of California. Their reported attitudes and behavior represent a culturally sensitive position. For example, 83% of the sample indicated that they consider culture for most or all of their culturally different patients. A total of 96 therapists provided brief case summaries describing how they took culture into account for a given patient. A qualitative analysis revealed that culture is considered throughout the evaluation and treatment process. Furthermore, 35 case summaries referred to changes in the therapists' clinical evaluations as a result of considering culture. All but three of the case summaries indicated that clinicians judged the problems to be less severe or less pathological when thought to be cultural in nature. The risk of dismissing actual psychopathology as culturally normative behavior is considered.