Although books on the cultural aspects of mental health already exist, Cultural Psychiatry With Children, Adolescents, and Families is one of only a few to focus specifically on the role of culture in mental health assessment, diagnosis, and care of children, adolescents, and their families. In the United States, more than 50% of children younger than 15 years identify as nonwhite, a designation that comprises many ethnicities and cultural backgrounds. In addition, diverse sexual/gender identities and religious/spiritual beliefs can render young people a “hidden” minority. This text was written for health care providers across all disciplines and clinical settings caring for the mental health of these patients and also serves as an indispensable companion to the Clinical Manual of Cultural Psychiatry for clinicians working with diverse populations. The editors, distinguished scholars and clinicians, as well as experts on diversity and inclusion, apply history, theory, and evidence-based practice to the various dimensions influencing mental health in children, adolescents, transitional-age youth, and families.
The book is comprehensive and clinically rich:
- Material is presented on a wide variety of ethnicities, including African American; American Indian, Alaskan Native, and Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander; Asian American, Latinx, and Arab American cultures.
- The special mental health and medical needs of LGBTQ+ youth are addressed, as well as their different developmental trajectories. The book explores the mental health, medical, and structural interventions that can be taken to reduce the mental health and medical disparities they face and offers best practices, including the most recent guidelines for transgender youth wishing to transition.
- The volume emphasizes the importance of the DSM-5 Outline for Cultural Formulation, an instrument perhaps even more relevant in populations where development is in flux and family compositions are diverse. A chapter of complex case examples is included to help readers understand the role of the DSM-5 Cultural Formulation Interview.
- The impact of immigration status and the mental health burden of forcibly displaced children are discussed in detail, including a literature review on the mental health effects of migration; a discussion of protective factors and resilience in children and families; and strategies for working with migrant youth and families, including building trust, understanding the role of silence, and taking a family-centered approach.
- The paramount importance of remaining open-minded and taking a nonjudgmental stance when dealing with aspects of culture is emphasized throughout, as is intersectionality, a theoretical framework that recognizes individuals with multiple social or minority identities and their experience of layered, societal-based inequities due to their diverse individuality.
- The book is timely, with updated information to help clinicians address the impacts on youth and families of the COVID-19 pandemic and the movement for social justice.
The information found in Cultural Psychiatry With Children, Adolescents, and Families is down-to-earth, absorbing, and absolutely essential for clinicians and caregivers in our increasingly diverse world.
