what examples might the sociocultural model use to describe the causes of disorders?

Therapy and Treatment

The Sociocultural Model and Therapy Utilization

Learning Objectives

By the end of this department, you volition be able to:

• Explain how the sociocultural model is used in therapy
• Talk over barriers to mental health services among indigenous minorities

The sociocultural perspective looks at yous, your behaviors, and your symptoms in the context of your civilization and background. For example, José is an 18-twelvemonth-erstwhile Hispanic male from a traditional family. José comes to treatment because of depression. During the intake session, he reveals that he is gay and is nervous about telling his family unit. He also discloses that he is concerned because his religious groundwork has taught him that homosexuality is incorrect. How does his religious and cultural background affect him? How might his cultural background bear on how his family reacts if José were to tell them he is gay?

As our club becomes increasingly multiethnic and multiracial, mental health professionals must develop cultural competence, which means they must sympathize and accost issues of race, culture, and ethnicity. They must also develop strategies to effectively address the needs of various populations for which Eurocentric therapies accept limited application (Sue, 2004). For example, a advisor whose treatment focuses on private conclusion making may be ineffective at helping a Chinese client with a collectivist approach to trouble solving (Sue, 2004).

Multicultural counseling and therapy aims to offer both a helping role and procedure that uses modalities and defines goals consistent with the life experiences and cultural values of clients. It strives to recognize client identities to include individual, group, and universal dimensions, advocate the use of universal and civilisation-specific strategies and roles in the healing process, and balancs the importance of individualism and collectivism in the assessment, diagnosis, and treatment of customer and client systems (Sue, 2001).

This therapeutic perspective integrates the impact of cultural and social norms, starting at the beginning of treatment. Therapists who employ this perspective work with clients to obtain and integrate information nigh their cultural patterns into a unique treatment approach based on their particular situation (Stewart, Simmons, & Habibpour, 2012). Sociocultural therapy tin can include individual, group, family, and couples treatment modalities.

How do your cultural and religious beliefs affect your attitude toward mental health treatment? (credit "top-left": modification of work by Staffan Scherz; credit "top-left-middle": modification of work past Alejandra Quintero Sinisterra; credit "elevation-right-centre": modification of work past Pedro Ribeiro Simões; credit "top-right": modification of work past Agustin Ruiz; credit "bottom-left": modification of work by Czech Provincial Reconstruction Team; credit "bottom-left-middle": modification of work by Arian Zwegers; credit "bottom-correct-heart": modification of work by "Wonderlane"/Flickr; credit "lesser-correct": modification of work past Shiraz Chanawala)

Watch this short video to learn more than almost cultural competence and sociocultural treatments.

BARRIERS TO TREATMENT

Statistically, ethnic minorities tend to utilize mental health services less frequently than White, middle-course Americans (Alegría et al., 2008; Richman, Kohn-Wood, & Williams, 2007). Why is this and then? Peradventure the reason has to do with access and availability of mental health services. Ethnic minorities and individuals of depression socioeconomic status (SES) report that barriers to services include lack of insurance, transportation, and time (Thomas & Snowden, 2002). Nevertheless, researchers have found that even when income levels and insurance variables are taken into account, indigenous minorities are far less likely to seek out and utilize mental wellness services. And when admission to mental health services is comparable across ethnic and racial groups, differences in service utilization remain (Richman et al., 2007).

In a written report involving thousands of women, it was found that the prevalence rate of anorexia was similar across different races, but that bulimia nervosa was more than prevalent amid Hispanic and African American women when compared with non-Hispanic whites (Marques et al., 2011). Although they have similar or higher rates of eating disorders, Hispanic and African American women with these disorders tend to seek and engage in handling far less than Caucasian women. These findings suggest ethnic disparities in access to care, also as clinical and referral practices that may prevent Hispanic and African American women from receiving care, which could include lack of bilingual treatment, stigma, fear of not beingness understood, family unit privacy, and lack of teaching most eating disorders.

Perceptions and attitudes toward mental health services may also contribute to this imbalance. A recent study at King'south College, London, found many complex reasons why people do not seek treatment: self-sufficiency and not seeing the need for help, non seeing therapy every bit effective, concerns about confidentiality, and the many effects of stigma and shame (Cloudless et al., 2014). And in another written report, African Americans exhibiting low were less willing to seek handling due to fear of possible psychiatric hospitalization as well as fear of the treatment itself (Sussman, Robins, & Earls, 1987). Instead of mental health treatment, many African Americans prefer to be self-reliant or employ spiritual practices (Snowden, 2001; Belgrave & Allison, 2010). For example, it has been constitute that the Black church building plays a significant role equally an culling to mental health services past providing prevention and treatment-type programs designed to raise the psychological and physical well-being of its members (Blank, Mahmood, Fox, & Guterbock, 2002).

Additionally, people belonging to ethnic groups that already report concerns about prejudice and discrimination are less likely to seek services for a mental illness because they view it as an additional stigma (Gary, 2005; Townes, Cunningham, & Chavez-Korell, 2009; Scott, McCoy, Munson, Snowden, & McMillen, 2011). For example, in one recent study of 462 older Korean Americans (over the historic period of 60) many participants reported suffering from depressive symptoms. However, 71% indicated they thought depression was a sign of personal weakness, and 14% reported that having a mentally ill family member would bring shame to the family unit (Jang, Chiriboga, & Okazaki, 2009).

Language differences are a further barrier to handling. In the previous study on Korean Americans' attitudes toward mental health services, it was found that there were no Korean-speaking mental wellness professionals where the study was conducted (Orlando and Tampa, Florida) (Jang et al., 2009). Because of the growing number of people from ethnically diverse backgrounds, at that place is a demand for therapists and psychologists to develop knowledge and skills to go culturally competent (Ahmed, Wilson, Henriksen, & Jones, 2011). Those providing therapy must arroyo the procedure from the context of the unique civilization of each client (Sue & Sue, 2007).

Handling Perceptions

Past the time a child is a senior in high school, 20% of his classmates—that is 1 in v—will have experienced a mental health trouble (U.Southward. Department of Health and Human Services, 1999), and viii%—well-nigh 1 in 12—will have attempted suicide (Centers for Disease Command and Prevention, 2014). Of those classmates experiencing mental disorders, just xx% volition receive professional help (U.Due south. Public Health Service, 2000). Why?

Information technology seems that the public has a negative perception of children and teens with mental health disorders. Co-ordinate to researchers from Indiana Academy, the University of Virginia, and Columbia University, interviews with over one,300 U.S. adults show that they believe children with depression are prone to violence and that if a child receives treatment for a psychological disorder, then that kid is more likely to be rejected by peers at school.

Bernice Pescosolido, author of the study, asserts that this is a misconception. However, stigmatization of psychological disorders is one of the primary reasons why immature people exercise non get the aid they need when they are having difficulties. Pescosolido and her colleagues circumspection that this stigma surrounding mental illness, based on misconceptions rather than facts, tin be devastating to the emotional and social well-beingness of our nation's children.

This warning played out equally a national tragedy in the 2012 shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary. In her blog, Suzy DeYoung (2013), co-founder of Sandy Hook Promise (the organization parents and concerned others fix up in the wake of the school massacre) speaks to treatment perceptions and what happens when children do not receive the mental health handling they desperately need.

I've become accustomed to the reaction when I tell people where I'm from.

Eleven months later, it's as consistent as information technology was back in January.

Just yesterday, inquiring as to the availability of a rental house this holiday flavour, the gentleman taking my information paused to ask, "Newtown, CT? Isn't that where that…that thing happened?

A contempo encounter in the Massachusetts Berkshires, withal, took me by surprise.

Information technology was in a small, charming art gallery. The proprietor, a adult female who looked to exist in her 60s, asked where nosotros were from. My response usually depends on my present mood and readiness for the inevitable dialogue. Sometimes it's but, Connecticut. This fourth dimension, I replied, Newtown, CT.

The woman's demeanor abruptly shifted from i of amiable graciousness to 1 of visible agitation.

"Oh my god," she said wide eyed and open mouthed. "Did y'all know her?"

. . . .

"Her?" I inquired

That adult female," she replied with disdain, "that woman that raised that monster."

"That woman's" proper name was Nancy Lanza. Her son, Adam, killed her with a burglarize blast to the head earlier heading out to kill 20 children and 6 educators at Sandy Claw Simple School in Newtown, CT final December 14th.

When Nelba Marquez Greene, whose beautiful 6-twelvemonth-quondam daughter, Ana, was killed by Adam Lanza, was recently asked how she felt about "that woman," this was her reply:

"She's a victim herself. And information technology's time in America that we kickoff looking at mental illness with pity, and helping people who need it.

"This was a family that needed help, an individual that needed help and didn't go it. And what better tin can come of this, of this time in America, than if we can get help to people who actually need it?" (pars. i–vii, x–xv)

Fortunately, we are starting to encounter campaigns related to the destigmatization of mental illness and an increment in public education and awareness. Join the effort by encouraging and supporting those effectually y'all to seek help if they demand it. To larn more, visit the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) website (http://www.nami.org/). The nation'due south largest nonprofit mental wellness advocacy and support arrangement is NAMI.

Summary

The sociocultural perspective looks at you lot, your behaviors, and your symptoms in the context of your culture and background. Clinicians using this arroyo integrate cultural and religious behavior into the therapeutic procedure. Research has shown that ethnic minorities are less probable to admission mental health services than their White middle-class American counterparts. Barriers to treatment include lack of insurance, transportation, and time; cultural views that mental disease is a stigma; fears about treatment; and linguistic communication barriers.

Review Questions

The sociocultural perspective looks at you, your behaviors, and your symptoms in the context of your ________.

1. education
2. socioeconomic condition
3. culture and groundwork
4. age

[reveal-answer q="982088″]Show Respond[/reveal-respond]
[hidden-answer a="982088″]C[/hidden-answer]

Which of the following was non listed every bit a barrier to mental health treatment?

1. fears most handling
2. linguistic communication
3. transportation
4. being a member of the ethnic majority

[reveal-respond q="242595″]Bear witness Answer[/reveal-answer]
[subconscious-respond a="242595″]D[/hidden-answer]

Critical Thinking Question

Lashawn is a 24-year-old African American female. For years she has been struggling with bulimia. She knows she has a problem, but she is not willing to seek mental wellness services. What are some reasons why she may be hesitant to get assistance?

1 reason may exist that her culture views having a mental illness as a stigma. Additionally, possibly she doesn't take insurance and is worried about the price of therapy. She could likewise exist afraid that a White advisor would not sympathize her cultural background, then she would feel uncomfortable sharing things. Also, she may believe she is self-reliant and tell herself that she'south a potent woman who can prepare this problem on her own without the help of a therapist.

Personal Application Question

What is your attitude toward mental wellness treatment? Would you lot seek treatment if you were experiencing symptoms or having problem functioning in your life? Why or why not? In what means do you lot remember your cultural and/or religious beliefs influence your attitude toward psychological intervention?

Glossary

cultural competence

therapist's understanding and attention to problems of race, culture, and ethnicity in providing handling

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Source: https://opentextbc.ca/psychologyopenstax/chapter/the-sociocultural-model-and-therapy-utilization/

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