About the Book

“The only flaw of the text is that the authors have understated in the title of the book its usefulness” Glenda Pedwell, Occupational Therapist

“I cannot recommend this book highly enough. It should be compulsory reading for all students of the health sciences” Associate Professor Jane McKendrick, Division of Maori and Pacific Health, University of Auckland

We live in a multicultural society, yet how well do we understand the differences that exist across cultures and how they may impact on mental health and mental health assessment?

Assessing Mental Health Across Cultures provides a framework for mental health professionals and students to obtain an in-depth understanding of a client whose cultural background is different to their own. The book uses a combination of theoretical discussion and case examples set in the context of Australia’s multicultural society.

Chapter titles include:

• Issues and Dilemmas in Diagnosis Across Cultures
  
  
• Cultural Values, the Sense of Self and Psychiatric Assessment
  
  
• Expression and Communication of Distress Across Cultures
  
  
• Issues in Translating Mental Health Terms Across Cultures
  
  
• Crosscultural Beliefs about Illness
  
  
• Negotiating Explanatory Models

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Authors

Lena Andary is a clinical psychologist who has worked with mental health services since 1992, including acute psychiatric inpatient units, crisis assessment and treatment teams and outpatient clinics. At the time of writing her position was as Ethnic Mental Health Consultant, which involved assisting mental health services in the Eastern Region and Inner South of Melbourne to improve their responsiveness to consumers from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds. Lena’s work has included the development and implementation of policy, research, training and education of mental health clinicians and community development. Her particular area of interest has been the clinical implications of working with persons from linguistically and culturally diverse backgrounds in terms of assessment, understanding and treatment. Lena is also a member of the Australian Centre for Psychoanalysis and teaches part of the Graduate Diploma in Community Mental Health offered by Melbourne University.

Yvonne Stolk is a clinical psychologist who worked for 8 years in community and inpatient mental health settings. Since 1997 she has been employed by NorthWestern Mental Health as an Ethnic Mental Health Consultant, working with mental health services in the Western Region of Melbourne to increase sensitivity of staff to clients of cultural and linguistic diversity and to improve access to services by ethnic communities. The training program that formed the basis of this book was developed collaboratively with Yvonne's co-authors in response to training needs identified as part of research she is undertaking for her PhD with the Centre International Mental Health, Department of Psychiatry, University of Melbourne. She was a contributing author to The Price of Freedom: Young Indochinese Refugees in Australia, edited by Krupinski and Burrows in 1986. In addition to a number of journal articles and research reports, Yvonne co-authored Not the Marrying Kind: Single Women in Australia, in 1983, which was based on research for her Master’s thesis.

Steven Klimidis was awarded his PhD at the Australian National University in the field of clinical psychology in 1989. In the past decade he has worked as a clinical psychologist in private practice and within public health agencies. He has acted as consultant to numerous projects ranging from mental health promotion, service models development and clinical services evaluation. He has authored research papers, book chapters and reports in areas as diverse as psychiatric epidemiology, the phenomenology of psychoses, evaluation of health care services and transcultural mental health. Steven’s research has more recently concentrated on how culture might be best conceptualised as it affects the nature of psychological distress, the help-seeking process and the therapeutic relationship. Currently he is the Assistant Director and Co-ordinator of Research of the Victorian Transcultural Psychiatry Unit and holds the position of Associate Professor in the Centre for International Mental Health, Department of Psychiatry, University of Melbourne.

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Reviews

Psychiatric and mental health nurses are part of a multidisciplinarian team in the true sense. Part of this role is assessment at many stages of illness. This assessment includes a mental state and a risk assessment. All assessments take into account the mental state assessment. Culture and its role in anyone’s life flavours this. The book discusses in depth all the areas one would need to be aware of. Nurses use the therapeutic self in all their roles. Rapport is vital in this role. This book assists in understanding barriers and strategies that could be used to overcome these.
The Nurses Board of Victoria encourages and its curricula stipulates the importance of understanding culture. Its guidelines reflects the relevance culture has in Indigenous health and in mental health and aged care, in particular.
Communication is the greatest tool any clinician has, no matter the discipline. Cultural sensitivity throughout the assessment and engagement requires sensitive communication skills. This book will greatly assist in the depth of any clinician's knowledge base. Recommended at any level of skill base for skills growth and development.

Robyn Garlick
Director of Nursing
Mental Health for Eastern Health

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Extract From Speech
At the launch of Assessing Mental Health Across Cultures on 31st March, 2003

What has been lacking is a concise and clearly written text that clinicians can learn from on their own and can be used as part of formal training programs. This gap is now admirably filled by Assessing Mental Health Across Cultures. The fact that the book arose out of, and was informed by, a training program in Crosscultural Psychiatric Assessment for mental health practitioners in Victoria, means that the book has been written in a manner that will meet the needs of clinicians of all disciplines who are working in our mental health service system. Its importance, however, goes well beyond our own local concerns. The book argues for an approach to mental health assessment across cultures that is relevant in a wide variety of other settings both nationally and internationally. I am confident that the book will find a place in undergraduate and postgraduate training program across all of the mental health disciplines. It will certainly contribute to the training programs of the Victorian Transcultural Psychiatry Unit.

I. Harry Minas,
Associate Professor
Director of the Victorian Transcultural Psychiatry Unit and Centre for International Mental Health

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