Culture in the clinical practice of psychiatry

Abstract EN

Culture, the social heritage of a community, is not simply an esoteric research issue.

Contributions of culture are witnessed in everyday psychiatric practice in the genesis, patterning, outcome, and management of all disorders.

Psychiatric disorder is defined and measured against patients' cultural background.

Domination of the clinical picture by somatic symptoms is based on culturally-shared beliefs about bodily functions.

In traditional communities families, and not individuals, form the units of society.

Hence families are used as systems of close social support for psychiatric patients in the Middle East in contrast to resort to public / diffuse social services in the West.

Culturally conditioned expectations from treated psychiatric patients contribute to the better outcome of patients in traditional Middle Eastern communities than in developed societies.

Families measure a programme of social contacts for a sick family member and strive for his / her integration and not isolation.

Families in developing countries are the decision makers in relation to health problems and illness behavior.

Traditional healing reinforces patients' projections which medical psychotherapy tries to undo.

Culture is a socially shared system of explicit practices and implicit values, beliefs and attitudes which are transgenerationally transmitted in a community1.

Religion is a component of culture.

In mental ill health, cultural inputs contribute to the definition, diagnosis, prevention, genesis, illness behavior, decision-making, therapy and outcome of psychiatric disorders.