Culture and Mental Health: A Review of Culture related Psychiatric Conditions

Abstract

Culture is the characteristics of human behavior and knowledge of a particular group of people, encompassing speech, action, and artifacts. Culture has its primary psychological influence on issues of identity and it is a keystone in psychiatry, and also it is an abstract, reflecting the total way of life of a society. This article discusses the concept of culture and its relation to mental health conditions. In mental health problems, from the presentation of illness to course and outcome, at every stage are influenced by cultural issues. Researchers and available literature listed that the range of psychiatric condition in the diagnosis of the cultural bound syndrome and the importance of cultural aspects in psychiatric diagnosis. The impact of culture on specific syndromes that are strongly related to culture is easier to be seen. However, it needs to be recognized that culture-related mental health conditions are merely the tip of the iceberg. The diverse cultural and ethnicity of the world is a challenge to the field of mental health towards the development of cross culture approach. Therefore the focus should not be on the clinical manifestation but the evaluations should be made from the view of cultural aspects too.