Psychology across cultures: Challenges and opportunities

Abstract

Large variations of inequalities in rates of mental health disorders and access to mental health care exist within and between countries. Globally, disparities range from countries where there is little provision to those where, despite the availability of evidence-based mental health care, service access and outcomes are mediated by social factors such as socio-economic status, race/ethnicity, and culture. This is salient because increasingly diverse populations are inevitably created with globalization. We posit that in multicultural contexts, effective therapeutic engagement requires therapists who are competent and confident to work with diversity and difference, utilizing insights into their own as well as their clients' internal and external worlds. Although there are many reasons why psychotherapies can be insensitive and harmful, for example, the inherent power imbalance in therapeutic relationships, a lack of awareness of cultural and ethnic variation and needs are among them. Acquisition of 'cultural competence' and increasing availability of culturally-adapted interventions should, in theory, enable practitioners to work with a range of individuals with whom they might have little in common. However, whilst cultural adaptation appears promising, there are concerns regarding its viability as a strategy for tackling disparities in access to psychological care. Evidence for cultural competency is patchy at best. We show how and why delivering effective psychotherapy in the twenty-first century requires a paradigm shift from current approaches to truly integrated models, developed in collaboration with recipients of care. Coproducing interventions, training, and means of evaluating them with clients necessitates taking into consideration social contexts, alternative conceptualizations of mental health and disorders and difficulties, and what constitutes appropriate helpful interventions for psychological distress. PRACTITIONER POINTS: Upskilling therapists to work with diversity and difference is essential for effective delivery of psychological treatments. Increasing the availability of culturally-adapted interventions together with therapists who are sufficiently competent and confident to deliver them should enable practitioners to work with a range of individuals with whom they might have little in common. Coproducing culturally appropriate means of responding to mental health difficulties, staff training and development, and service evaluation methods with clients necessitates taking into consideration social contexts, alternative explanatory models of mental health and 'illness', and what constitutes helpful interventions for psychological distress.

Keywords: cultural adaptation; cultural competence; culture; disparities; ethnicity; global mental health; psychological care.