Based on a recently completed project of cultural consultation in
Montreal, Cultural Consultation presents a model of multicultural
and applicable health care. This model used clinicians and consultants
to provide in-depth assessment, treatment planning, and limited
interventions in consultation with frontline primary care and mental
health practitioners working with immigrants, refugees, and members of
indigenous and ethnocultural communities. Evaluation of the service has
demonstrated that focused interventions by consultants familiar with
patients' cultural backgrounds could improve the relationship between
the patient and the primary clinician.
This volume presents models for intercultural work in psychiatry and
psychology in primary care, general hospital and specialty mental health
settings. The editors highlight crucial topics such as:
- Discussing the social context of intercultural mental health care,
conceptual models of the role of culture in psychopathology and healing,
and the development of a cultural consultation service and a specialized
cultural psychiatric service
- Examining the process of intercultural work more closely with
particular emphasis oto strategies of consultation, the identity of the
clinician, the ways in which gender and culture position the clinician,
and interaction of the consultant with family systems and larger
institutions
- Highlighting special situations that may place specific demands on
the clinician: working with refugees and survivors of torture or
political violence, with separated families, and with patients with
psychotic episodes
This book is of valuable use to mental health practitioners who are
working in multidisciplinary settings who seek to understand cultural
difference in complex cases. Psychiatrists, psychologists, social
workers, nurse practitioners, primary care providers and trainees in
these disciplines will make thorough use of the material covered in this
text.
