IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/socpsy/v40y1994i1p61-74.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Unique Challenges Faced By Psychiatrists and Other Mental Health Professionals Working in a Multicultural Setting

Author

Listed:
  • Thomas L. Chiu

    (Sunset Park Mental Health Center of the Lutheran Medical Center, Brooklyn, New York)

Abstract

This article describes and analyzes the unique challenges that face psychiatrists and other mental health professionals serving a multicultural population in a limited geographic setting, based on the author's experiences working as a psychiatrist on a mobile crisis unit from 1984 through 1991 on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Of special importance, the paper presents and provides support for the "interaction hypothesis", which proposes that sociocultural background factors interact with mental disorders to produce dissimilar behavioral expressions of the same disorder among members of different ethnic groups. Concern is voiced that mental health professionals, in order to provide effective treatment in multicultural settings, need to understand and accept each ethnic group's idiosyncracies, identity, and background.

Suggested Citation

  • Thomas L. Chiu, 1994. "The Unique Challenges Faced By Psychiatrists and Other Mental Health Professionals Working in a Multicultural Setting," International Journal of Social Psychiatry, , vol. 40(1), pages 61-74, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:socpsy:v:40:y:1994:i:1:p:61-74
    DOI: 10.1177/002076409404000106
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/002076409404000106
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/002076409404000106?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Sussman, Linda K. & Robins, Lee N. & Earls, Felton, 1987. "Treatment-seeking for depression by black and white Americans," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 24(3), pages 187-196, January.
    2. Ellmer, Rosemary & Olbrisch, Mary Ellen, 1983. "The contribution of a cultural perspective in understanding and evaluating client satisfaction," Evaluation and Program Planning, Elsevier, vol. 6(3-4), pages 275-281, January.
    3. Thomas L. Chiu & Chuck Primeau, 1991. "A Psychiatric Mobile Crisis Unit in New York City: Description and Assessment, with Implications for Mental Health Care in the 1990S," International Journal of Social Psychiatry, , vol. 37(4), pages 251-258, December.
    4. Migliore, Sam, 1989. "Punctuality, pain and time-orientation among Sicilian-Canadians," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 28(8), pages 851-859, January.
    5. White, Geoffrey M., 1982. "The role of cultural explanations in 'somatization' and 'psychologization'," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 16(16), pages 1519-1530, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Alean Al-Krenawi & John R. Graham & Menachim Ophir & Jamil Kandah, 2001. "Ethnic and Gender Differences in Mental Health Utilization: the Case of Muslim Jordanian and Moroccan Jewish Israeli Out-Patient Psychiatric Patients," International Journal of Social Psychiatry, , vol. 47(3), pages 42-54, September.
    2. Alean Al-Krenawi, 1999. "Explanations of Mental Health Symptoms By the Bedouin-Arabs of the Negev," International Journal of Social Psychiatry, , vol. 45(1), pages 56-64, March.
    3. Saheed Wahass & Gerry Kent, 1997. "A Comparison of Public Attitudes in Britain and Saudi Arabia Towards Auditory Hallucinations," International Journal of Social Psychiatry, , vol. 43(3), pages 175-183, September.
    4. Dinesh Bhugra, 1997. "Setting Up Psychiatric Services: Cross-Cultural Issues in Planning and Delivery," International Journal of Social Psychiatry, , vol. 43(1), pages 16-28, March.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Keith Lloyd, 1993. "Depression and Anxiety Among Afro-Caribbean General Practice Attenders in Britain," International Journal of Social Psychiatry, , vol. 39(1), pages 1-9, March.
    2. Bauer, Amy M. & Chen, Chih-Nan & Alegría, Margarita, 2012. "Associations of physical symptoms with perceived need for and use of mental health services among Latino and Asian Americans," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 75(6), pages 1128-1133.
    3. Johnson, Blair T. & Acabchuk, Rebecca L., 2018. "What are the keys to a longer, happier life? Answers from five decades of health psychology research," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 196(C), pages 218-226.
    4. Roberto Mezzina & Daniela Vidoni, 1995. "Beyond the Mental Hospital: Crisis Intervention and Continuity of Care in Trieste. A Four Year Follow-Up Study in a Community Mental Health Centre," International Journal of Social Psychiatry, , vol. 41(1), pages 1-20, March.
    5. Karasz, Alison, 2005. "Cultural differences in conceptual models of depression," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 60(7), pages 1625-1635, April.
    6. Gross, Christiane & Schübel, Thomas & Hoffmann, Rasmus, 2015. "Picking up the pieces—Applying the DISEASE FILTER to health data," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 119(4), pages 549-557.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:socpsy:v:40:y:1994:i:1:p:61-74. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.