How do perceptions of mental health and illness differ among cultural groups?
Nice meta synthesis manuscript about perception in mental health....
https://www.dovepress.com/front_end/cr_data/cache/pdf/download_1608325634_5fdd1a02a0842/NDT-111543-beliefs-and-perception-about-mental-health-issues--a-meta-sy_103116.pdf
There is a vast diversity of the perception of mental health across the globe. Moreover, physical illnesses are given more importance as compared to mental disorders in developing countries like Pakistan.
Excellent question. Much of the theory and practice of mental health, including psychiatry and mainstream psychology, have emerged from Western cultural traditions and Western understandings of the human condition. Notions of the Cartesian dualism of body and mind, positivism, and reductionism have been central to the development of mainstream mental health systems as they are widely implemented today. While these relatively monocultural understandings of mental health have provided powerful conceptual tools and frameworks for the alleviation of mental distress in many settings, they have also been very problematic when applied to the context of non-Western cultures without consideration of the complexity that working across cultures brings with it
There are still strong superstitions and stigmatizations around the human phenomenon of mental illness. Mentalizing and quantifying mental health is needed to clarify the full spectrum of disturbing and pathological moods in a living human being, also with respect to the somatic factors involved. The chronification of certain (cultural) moods needs special medical attention, e.g. the Hungarian Suicide Song (Gloomy Sunday) comes here in my mind as cultural example.
Excellent question. Much of the theory and practice of mental health, including psychiatry and mainstream psychology, have emerged from Western cultural traditions and Western understandings of the human condition. Notions of the Cartesian dualism of body and mind, positivism, and reductionism have been central to the development of mainstream mental health systems as they are widely implemented today. While these relatively monocultural understandings of mental health have provided powerful conceptual tools and frameworks for the alleviation of mental distress in many settings, they have also been very problematic when applied to the context of non-Western cultures without consideration of the complexity that working across cultures brings with it