Chapter 1 - Culture and Psychiatry

Summary

Chapter 1 provides an overview of the field of cultural psychiatry before focusing on the UK context. Salient factors in the national context of cultural psychiatry include the history of imperialism and the impact of postwar migration on the development of a multi-ethnic society. This has necessitated research in the following priority areas: the recognition of the effects of racism and discrimination on mental health, and, relatedly, efforts to achieve services that meet the needs of ethnic minority groups. Current areas of research are outlined before a deeper discussion of two strands that will be explored more widely in the book. These are, in order: the need to recognise more fully cultural hybridity with ethnic minority populations and the perspectives of South Asian psychiatrists within the white spaces of psychiatry and the impact this has on practice. All too often ethnic minority populations, historically within the UK, from non-white ethnicities are clumped together for statistical reasons. This leads to gross oversimplifications that flattens differences. Addressing the complexity of identity in its intersectionality and that too through the interviews with South Asian psychiatrists leads to a more developed understanding about identity, which is necessary in improving mental health services for South Asian patients.