Among the medical specialties, Psychiatry is one of the most sensitive to cultural influences. In this era of globalization with more access to communication, the world is more interconnected. People migrate more than before, and they bring with them their culture, values, and traditions. For mental health providers, diagnosing and treating some unexplained symptoms or syndromes can be at times very challenging. But it can be understood in a cultural context. Culture provides a framework to understand the cognitive, emotional, and overall behavioral expressions of people that could be pathological for one culture and not for another. With the cooperation of anthropology, social psychiatry, and cultural psychiatry-among others-we can understand the influence of culture in the regulation of thoughts, feelings, emotions, and idioms of distress.

Upon completion of this webinar participants are able to: 

• Become familiar with the important role of culture in psychiatry diagnosis and treatments.
• Be familiar with idioms of distress and somatization in psychiatry.
• Be familiar with some strategies and interventions through a clinical case of applying cultural principles to treat patients with mental illness.

View a recording of this 4/19/23 session here.