Challenges and Rewards of a culturally-informed approach to mental health | Jessica Dere | TEDxUTSC

Dr. Jessica Dere explains how culture makes a difference when thinking about mental health and mental illness. Across mental health research, clinical care and teaching, there are profound rewards to be had by truly understanding individuals in context.

Dr. Jessica Dere is a clinical lecturer in the Department of Psychology and the Graduate Department of Psychological Clinical Science at UTSC. She obtained her Ph.D in Clinical Psychology from Concordia University in 2012, and completed a post-doctoral fellowship in the Social Aetiology of Mental Illness (SAMI) training program at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH). Her research interests include the role of cultural factors in emotional processes and cultural variations in symptom presentation of depression and anxiety.

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at http://ted.com/tedx

27 Comments

  1. Reality is constantly in need of evaluation, testing, and experimenting. We hold too many biases about what is "Normal" for any of us to cast stones at the weird people.

  2. Dr. Dere discusses 2 things that healthcare providers can do to have a culturally-informed approach to mental health. One, take a stance of informed curiosity and then ask questions and ask questions differently. Culture and religion are 2 things that can massively influence an individual’s willingness to receive treatment and can influence who the primary decision maker is. Understanding where a patient is coming from is so crucial in providing optimal care to a patient. Autonomy in medical decision making is an ethical principle that is dealt a lot with when it comes to incorporating culture into a healthcare decision. Sometimes, a parent, grandparent, or even community leader is the one who makes the decision and physicians in the United States may have issues because this contradicts the patient having that autonomy. It also becomes difficult when there is a life-saving treatment that a patient or their family will not allow because that treatment may cause spiritual or everlasting harm based on that family’s culture. I agree with Dr. Dere in that asking and practicing asking in different ways is very crucial in order to be more culturally-informed. That way the patient preferences and understanding of what autonomy means to them, can be taken into account and healthcare professionals can be more culturally sensitive. However, out of the context of mental health this point gets very messy. In emergent situations where there isn’t time to call and consult family or a provider isn’t able to discuss with the patient about their cultural background, then this is where things get fuzzy. My only argument is that being culturally sensitive all the time and in specific specialties may be more difficult because of the nature of the situations. In mental health, I completely agree with Dr. Dere’s methods. It is in other situations of medicine that I would like to hear more about.

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