Abstract
The ‘multicultural clinical interaction’ presents itself as a dilemma for the mental health practitioner. Literature describes two problematic areas where this issues emerges - how to make an adequate distinction between religious rituals and the rituals that may be symptomatic of ‘obsessive compulsive disorder’ (OCD), and how to differentiate ‘normative’ religious or spiritual beliefs, behaviours, and experiences from ‘psychotic’ illnesses. When it comes to understanding service user’s ‘idioms of distress’, beliefs about how culture influences behaviour can create considerable confusion and ‘normative uncertainty’ for mental health practitioners. In the absence of clear diagnostic and assessment criteria on distinguishing between ‘culture’ and ‘psychopathology’, practitioners have had to rely on their own intuition and seek out possible ‘strategies’ or ‘procedures’ from a contradictory and cross-disciplinary evidence base. Decontextualisation of service users’ experiences may result in the pathologisation of culturally ‘normative’ phenomenon, ‘category fallacy’ errors, and poor health care experiences and outcomes for service users.
This paper situates this dilemma within a wider debate that has concerned both the biomedical and social sciences, namely, the unresolved question of ‘normality’ or ‘abnormality’. Indeed, issues that arise from dilemmas surrounding the question of ‘culture’ or ‘psychopathology’ are intimately tied to wider cultural ideas about what is considered ‘normal’. The disciplines of psychiatry, psychology, and medical anthropology have struggled to establish workable criteria against which to judge behaviour as ‘normal’, ‘abnormal’, or ‘pathological’. Three models for understanding mental ‘abnormality’ are evident in ‘transcultural psychiatry’ (what is now commonly known as ‘cultural psychiatry’), and these models have corresponded closely to the interpretive models used by anthropologists attempting to make sense of the apparent diversity of human societies . The three models of ‘absolutism’, ‘universalism’ and ‘cultural relativism’ have not only important consequences for the nature and conduct of research enquiry, but also have implications for how the dilemma of ‘culture’ or ‘psychopathology’ is attended to in clinical practice.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Abdul-Hamid, Walid K. 2002. “The Need for a Category of ‘Religious and Spiritual Problems’ in ICD-11.” International Psychiatry 8:60–62.
Al-Issa, Ihsan. 1977. “Social and Cultural Aspects of Hallucinations.” Psychological Bulletin 84:570–587.
Al-Issa, Ihsan, and S. Oudji. 1998. “Culture and Anxiety Disorders.” In Cultural Clinical Psychology: Theory, Research, and Practice, edited by Shahe D. Kazarian, and David R. Evans, 127–151. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Alonso, Leonardo, and William D. Jeffrey. 1988. “Mental Illness Complicated by the Santeria Belief in Spirit Possession.” Hospital and Community Psychiatry 39:1188–1191.
American Psychiatric Association. 1989. Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. (3rd ed.). Washington, D.C.: American Psychiatric Association.
American Psychiatric Association. 1994. Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. (4th ed.). Washington, D.C.: American Psychiatric Association.
Appelbaum, Paul S., Pamela Clark Robbins, and Loren H. Roth. 1999. “Dimensional Approach to Delusions: Comparison across Types and Diagnoses.” The American Journal of Psychiatry 156:1938–1943.
Argyle, Michael, and Benjamin Beit Hallahmi. 1975. The Social Psychology of Religion. Oxford: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Bains, Jatinder. 2005. “Race, Culture and Psychiatry: A History of Transcultural Psychiatry.” History of Psychiatry 16:139–154.
Barnhouse, Richard T. 1986. “How to Evaluate Patients’ Religious Ideation.” In Psychiatry and Religion: Overlapping Concerns, edited by L. Robinson, 90–105. Washington, D.C.: American Psychiatric Press.
Bartocci, Goffredo, and Simon Dein. 2007. “Religion and Mental Health.” In Culture and Mental Health: A Comprehensive Textbook, edited by Kamaldeep Bhui, and Dinesh Bhugra, 47–54. London: Hodder Arnold.
Benatar, Elana L. 2006. “Cultural Notions of Psychopathology: An Examination of Understandings of Spiritual Healing and Affliction across Cultures.” Praxis 6:58–63
Berry, John W., Ype H. Poortinga, Seger M. Breugelmans, and Athanasios Chasiotis. 2011. Cross-cultural Psychology: Research and Applications. 3rd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Bhugra, Dinesh. 1996. Psychiatry and Religion. London: Routledge.
Bhugra, Dinesh, and Kamaldeep Bhui. 1997. “Cross-cultural Psychiatric Assessment.” Advances in Psychiatric Treatment 3:103–110.
Bhui, Kamaldeep. 2002. Racism and Mental Health. London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers.
Bonham, Paul. 2004. Communicating as a Mental Health Carer. Cheltenham: Nelson Thornes.
Bradford, David T. 1985. A Therapy of Religious Imagery for Paranoid Schizophrenic Psychosis. Springfield: Charles C Thomas.
Bragdon, Emma. 1993. A Sourcebook for Helping People with Spiritual Problems. Aptos, CA: Lightening Up Press.
Brown, Peter J., Jessica Gregg, and Bruce L. Ballard. 1998. “Culture, Ethnicity and Behaviour and the Practice of Medicine.” In An Introduction to Human Behaviour for Medical Students, edited by Alan Stoudemire, 31–48. New York: J.R. Lippincott Publishers.
Browning, Don S., Thomas Gobe, and Ian S. Evision. 1990. Religious and Ethical Factors in Psychiatric Practice. Chicago: Nelson Hall.
Castillo, Richard, J. 1997a. Culture and Mental Illness: A Client-centred Approach. Pacific Grove, California: Brooks/Cole.
____. 1997b. “Dissociation.” In Culture and Psychopathology: A Guide to Clinical Assessment, edited by Wen-Shing Tseng, and Jon Streltzer, 101–123. New York: Brunner/Mazel.
____. 1997c. “Impact of Culture on Dissociation: Enhancing the Cultural Suitability of DSM-IV. In DSM-IV” Sourcebook, vol. 3, edited by Thomas A. Widiger, Allen J. Frances, Harold A. Pincus, Ruth Ross, Michael B. First, and Wendy Davis, 943–949. Washington, D.C.: American Psychiatric Press.
Charters, P-J. 1999. “The Religious and Spiritual needs of Mental Health Clients.” Nursing Standard 13:34–6.
Chrisman, Noel J. 1977. “The Health Seeking Process: An Approach to the Natural History of Illness.” Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry 1:351–377.
____. 1991. “Cultural Systems.” In Cancer Nursing, edited by Susan B. Baird, Ruth McCorkle, and Marcia M. Grant, 45–59. Philadelphia: W.B. Saunders.
Chrisman, Noel J., and Thomas M. Johnson. 1996. “Clinically Applied Anthropology.” In Handbook of Medical Anthropology: Contemporary Theory and Method, 2nd ed., edited by Carolyn F. Sargent, and Thomas M. Johnson, 88–109. Westport: Praeger.
Clarke, Isabel. 2001. Psychosis and Spirituality: Exploring the new Frontier. Gateshead: Whurr.
Clarke, Victoria, and Andrew Walsh. 2009. Fundamentals of Mental Health Nursing. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Cockerham, William C. 2000. “The Sociology of Health Behaviour and Health Lifestyles.” In Handbook of Medical Sociology, 5th ed., edited by Chloe E. Bird, Peter Conrad, Allen M. Fremont, and Stefan Timmermans, 159–172. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Como, June M. 2007. “Spiritual Practice: A Literature Review Related to Spiritual Health and Health Outcomes.” Holistic Nursing Practice 21:224–236.
Conrad, Peter, and Joseph W. Schneider. 1980. Deviance and Medicalization: From Badness to Sickness. St Louis: C.V. Mosby and Company.
Crossley, David. 1995. “Religious Experience within Mental Illness: Opening the Door on Research.” British Journal of Psychiatry 166:284–286.
Crowe, Marie. 2006. “Psychiatric Diagnosis: Some Implications for Mental Health Nursing Care.” Journal of Advanced Nursing 53:125–131.
Dawkins, Richard. 2006. The God Delusion. London: Bantam.
de Silva, Padmal, and Stanley Rachman. 2004. Obsessive-compulsive Dsorder: The Facts, 3rd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
de Silva, Padmal, and Dinesh Bhugra. 2007. “Culture and Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.” In Textbook of Cultural Psychiatry, edited by Dinesh Bhugra, and Kamaldeep Bhui, 282–292. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Dein, Simon. 1997. “ABC of Mental Health: Mental Health in a Multiethnic Society.” British Medical Journal 315:473.
____. “The Implications of an Anthropology of Religion for Psychiatric Practice.” In Anthropological Approaches to Psychological Medicine: Crossing Bridges, edited by Vedia Skultans, and John Cox, 172–184. London and Philadelphia: Jessica Kingsley Publishers.
____. 2004. Working with Patients with Religious Beliefs. Advances in Psychiatric Treatment 10:287–294.
____. 2010. “Working with Patients with Religious Beliefs.” In Clinical Topics in Cultural Psychiatry, edited by Rahul Bhattacharya, Sean Cross, and Dinesh Bhugra, 293–306. London: Royal College of Psychiatry.
Dein, Simon, and Maurice Lipsedge. 1998. “Negotiating across Class, Culture, and Religion: Psychiatry in the English Inner City.” In Clinical Methods in Transcultural Psychiatry, edited by Samuel O. Okpaku, 137–155. Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Press.
Dein, Simon, and Roland Littlewood. 2007. “The Voice of God.” Anthropology and Medicine 14:213–228.
Dein, Simon, Christopher C.H. Cook, Andrew Powell, and Sarah Eagger. 2010. “Religion, Spirituality and Mental Health.” The Psychiatrist 34:63–64.
Dillard, Maria, Lynne Andonian, Olivia Flores, Lisa Lai, Anne MacRae, and Muhjah Shakir. 1992. “Culturally Competent Occupational Therapy in a Diversely Populated Mental Health Setting.” American Journal of Occupational Therapy 46:721–726.
Dulaney, Siri, and Alan P. Fiske. 1994. “Cultural Rituals and Obsessive-compulsive Disorder: Is there a Common Psychological Mechanism”? Ethos 22:243–283.
Eeles, Jennie, Trevor Lowe, and Nigel Wellman. 2003. “Spirituality or Psychosis? An Exploration of the Criteria that Nurses use to Evaluate Spiritual-type Experiences Reported by Patients.” International Journal of Nursing Studies 40:197–206.
Eisenberg, Leon. 1977. “Disease and Illness: Distinctions between Professional and Popular Ideas of Sickness.” Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry 1:9–23.
Ember, Carol R., and Melvin Ember. 1992. Anthropology. 7th ed. Prentice Hall.
Fabrega, Horacio. 1989. “Cultural Relativism and Psychiatric Illness.” The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease 177:415–425.
Fallot, Roger D. 1998. “Assessment of Spirituality and Implications for Service Planning.” In Spirituality and Religion in Recovery from Mental Illness, vol. 80, edited by Roger D. Fallot, 13–23. San Francisco, California: Jossey-Bass Publishers.
____. 2001. “The Place of Spirituality and Religion in Mental Health Services.” New Directions for Mental Health Services 91:79–88.
Feinstein, Alvan R. 1977. “A Critical Overview of Diagnosis in Psychiatry.” In Psychiatric Diagnosis, edited by Vivian M. Rakoff, Harvey C. Stancer, and Henry B. Kedward, 189–206. New York: Brunner/Mazel.
Fernando, Suman. 1988. Race and Culture in Psychiatry. New York: Croom Helm.
____. 1998. Forensic Psychiatry, Race and Culture. London: Routledge.
____. 2002. Mental Health, Race and Culture. 2nd ed. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
____. 2003. Cultural Diversity, Mental Health and Psychiatry: The Struggle Against Racism. New York: Brunner-Routledge.
____. 2009. “Inequalities and the Politics of ‘Race’ in Mental Health.” In Mental Health in a Multi-ethnic Society: A Multidisciplinary andbook. 2nd ed., edited by Suman Fernando, and Frank Keating, 42–58. Hove, East Sussex: Routledge.
____. 2010. Mental Health, Race and Culture. 3rd ed. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Fitzgerald, Maureen H. 1992. “Multicultural Clinical Interactions.” Journal of Rehabilitation April/May/June: 1–5.
Fitzgerald, Maureen H., Colleen Mullavey-O’Byrne, Robyn L. Twible, and Astrid Kinebanian. 1995. Exploring Cultural Diversity: A Workshop Manual for Occupational Therapists. Sydney, Australia: The School of Occupational Therapy, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Sydney.
Fitzgerald, Maureen H., Colleen Mullavey-O’Byrne, Lindy Clemson, and Peter Williamson. 1997a. Enhancing Cultural Competency Training Manual. North Parramatta, Australia: Transcultural Mental Health Centre.
Fitzgerald, Maureen H., Ruth Beltran, Joy Pennock, Peter Williamson, and Colleen Mullavey-O’Byrne. 1997b. Occupational Therapy, Culture and Mental Tealth. Parramatta, New South Wales, Australia: Transcultural Mental Health Centre.
Freud, Sigmund. 1991/1805. On Sexuality: Three Essays on Sexuality and other Works Translated by James Strachey, edited by A. Richards. Harmondsworth: Penguin.
____. 1907. “Obsessive Acts, Religious Practices.” In Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological works of Sigmund Freud, vol. 7, edited by James Strachey, 1953–1974. London: Hogarth Press.
Fry, Anne. 1998. “Spirituality, Communication and Mental Health Nursing: The Tacit Interdiction.” Australian and New Zealand Journal of Mental Health Nursing 7:25–32.
Gabbard, Glen O., Stuart W. Twenlow, and Fowler C. Jones. 1982. “Differential Diagnosis of Altered Mind Body Perceptions.” Psychiatry 45:361–369.
Gaines, Atwood D. 1982. Knowledge and Practice: Anthropological Ideas and Psychiatric Practice. In Clinically Applied Anthropology, edited by Noel J. Chrisman, and Thomas W. Maretzki, 243–273. Dordrecht: D. Reidel.
____. 1988. “Delusions: Culture, Psychoses and the Problem of Meaning.” In Delusional Beliefs, edited by Thomas F. Oltmanns, and Brendan A. Maher, 231–258. New York: Wiley.
____. 1992. “Ethnopsychiatry: The Cultural Construction of Psychiatries.” In The Cultural Construction of Professional and Folk Psychiatries, edited by Atwood D. Gaines, 3–51. Albany: State University of New York Press.
____. 1995. “Culture-specific Delusions: Sense and Nonsense in Cultural Context.” Psychiatric Clinics of North America 18:281–301.
Galanti, Geri A. 2008. Caring for Patients from Different Cultures, 4th ed. Philadelphia: Pennsylvania Press.
Garety, Philippa, A., and David R. Hemsley. 1994. Delusions: Investigations into the Psychology of Delusional Reasoning. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Gartner, John, Morton Hermatz, Ann Hohmann, and David Larson. 1990. “The Effect of Patient and Clinician Ideology on Clinical Judgement: A Study of Ideological Countertransference.” Special Issue: Psychotherapy and Religion 27:98–106.
Geertz, Clifford. 1994. “Anti Anti-relativism.” American Anthropologist 86:263–278.
Good, Byron J. 1994. Medicine, Rationality and Experience: An Anthropological Perspective. Melbourne, Australia: Cambridge University Press.
Good, Byron J., and Mary J.D. Good. 1981. “The Meaning of Symptoms: A Cultural Hermeneutic Model for Clinical Practice.” In The Relevance of Social Science for Medicine, edited by Leon Eisenberg, and Arthur M. Kleinman, 165–196. Boston: D. Reidel Publishing.
____. 1986. “The Cultural Context of Diagnosis and Therapy:” A View from Medical Anthropology. In Mental Health Research in Minority Communities: Development of Culturally Sensitive Training Programs, edited by Manuel R. Mirada, and Harry H.L. Kitano, 1–27. Rockville, MD: National Institute of Mental Health.
Good, Byron J., and Arthur M. Kleinman. 1985. “Culture and Anxiety: Cross-cultural Evidence for the Patterning of Anxiety Disorders.” In Anxiety and Anxiety Disorders, edited by A. Hussain Tuma, and Jack D. Maser, 297–324. Hillsdale, N.J., England: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Greenberg, David, and Eliezer Witztum. 1991. “Problems in the Treatment of Religious Patients.” American Journal of Psychotherapy 45:554–565.
____. 2001. Sanity and Sanctity: Mental Health Work among the Ultra Orthodox in Jerusalem. New Haven, CT: Yale University.
Grof, Stanislav, and Christina Grof. 1992. The Stormy Search for Self: A Guide to Personal Growth through Transformational Crisis. New York: Tarcher.
Guarnaccia, Peter J. 1997. “A Cross-cultural Perspective on Anxiety Disorders.” In Cultural Issues in the Treatment of Anxiety, edited by Steven Friedman, 3–20. New York: Guilford.
Guarnaccia, Peter J., and Orlando Rodriguez. 1996. “Concepts of Culture and their Role in the Development of Culturally Competent Mental Health Services.” Hispanic Journal of Behavioral Sciences 18:419–443.
Guarnaccia, Peter J., and Laurence J. Kirmayer. 1997. “Culture and the Anxiety Disorders.” In DSM-IV Sourcebook, vol. 3, edited by Thomas A. Widiger, Allen J. Frances, Harold A. Princus, Ruth Ross, Michael B. First, and Wendy Davis, 925–932. Washington, D.C.: American Psychiatric Press.
Guarnaccia, Peter J., Luz M. Guevara-Ramos, Gilbert Gonzales, Glorisa Canino, and Hector R. Bird. 1992. “Cross-cultural Aspects of Psychotic Symptoms in Peurto Rico.” Research in Community and Mental Health 7:99–110.
Hahn, Robert A. 1995. Sickness and Healing: An Anthropological Perspective. New Haven, Connecticut, London: Yale University Press.
Helman, Cecil. 2000. Culture, Health and Illness. 4th ed. London: Butterworth Heinemann.
____. 2007. Culture, Health and Illness. 5th ed. London: Hodder Arnold.
Hirsch, W. 1962. Geistige and Seelische Stormungen Imjugendalter. In Die Jugend von Heute. Berliner landesausschuss fur Gesund heitliche: Volkbelehrung.
Hollis, Martin, and Steven Lukes. 1982. Rationality and Relativism. Oxford: Blackwell.
Hood, Ralph W., Bernard Pilka, Bruce Hunsberger, and Richard Gorsuch. 1996. The Psychology of Religion: An Empirical Approach. 2nd ed. New York: Guilford.
Hughes, Charles C. 1996. “Ethnopsychiatry.” In Medical Anthropology: Contemporary Theory and Method, revised ed., edited by Carolyn F. Sargent, and Thomas M. Johnson, 131–151. Westport, Connecticut: Praeger.
ICD. 1992. The ICD-10 Classification of Mental and Behavioural Disorders: Clinical Descriptions and Diagnostic Guidelines. Geneva: World Health Organization.
Jackson, Mike C., and Kenneth W.M. Fulford. 1997. “Spiritual Experience and Psychopathology.” Philosophy, Psychiatry and Psychology 4:41–65.
James, William. 1961. The Varieties of Religious Experience. New York: Macmillan.’
Jaspers, Karl. 1968. “The Phenomenological Approach in Psychopathology.” British Journal of Psychiatry 114:1313–1323.
Jenkins, Janis H, and Robert, J. Barrett. 2003. “Introduction.” In Schizophrenia, Culture and Subjectivity: The Edge of Experience, edited by Janis H. Jenkins, and Robert J. Barrett, 1–29. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Johnson, Chad V., and Harris L. Friedman. 2008. “Enlightened or Delusional? Differentiating Religious, Spiritual and Transpersonal Experiences from Psychopathology.” Journal of Humanistic Psychology 48:505–527.
Kehoe, Nancy C. 1999. “A Therapy Group on Spiritual Issues for Patients with Chronic Mental Illness.” Psychiatric Services 50:1081–1083.
Kendler, Kenneth S., William M. Glazer, and Hal Morgenstern. 1983. “Dimensions of Delusional Experience.” American Journal of Psychiatry 140:466–469.
Kilshaw, Susie, David Ndegwa, and John Curran. 2002. Between Worlds: Interpreting Conflict between Black Patients and their Clinicians. Lambeth, Southwark and Lewisham: Health Action Zone.
King, Michael, and Simon Dein. 1999. “The Spiritual Variable in Psychiatry.” Psychological Medicine 28:1259–1262.
Kingdon, David, Ron Siddle, Naeem Farooq, and Shanaya Rathod. “Spirituality, Psychosis and the Development of ‘Normalising Rationales’.” 2010. In Psychosis and Spirituality: Consolidating the New Paradigm, 2nd ed., edited by I. Clarke, 239–249.Chichester, West Sussex: Wiley-Blackwell.
Kirmayer, Laurence J. 2001. “Cultural Variations in the Clinical Presentation of Depression and Anxiety: Implications for Diagnosis and Treatment.” Journal of Clinical Psychology 62:22–28.
Kirmayer, Laurence J., Allan Young, and Barbara C. Hayton. 1997. “The Cultural Context of Anxiety Disorders.” In The Psychiatric Clinics of North America, edited by Renato D. Alarcon, 503–521. Philadelphia: Saunders.
Kirov, George, Roisin Kemp, Kiril Kirov, and Anthony S. David. 1998. “Religious Faith after Psychotic Illness.” Psychopathology 31:234–245.
Kishik, David. 2008. Wittgenstein’s Forms of life. London: Continuum.
Kleinman, Arthur M. 1977. “Depression, Somatisation and the ‘New Cross-Cultural Psychiatry’.” Social Science and Medicine 11:3–10.
____. 1978. “Concepts and a Model for the Comparison of Medical Systems as Cultural Systems.” Social Science and Medicine 12:85–93.
____. 1980. Patients and Healers in the Context of Culture: An Exploration of the Borderland between Anthropology, Medicine and Psychiatry. Berkeley, California: University of California Press.
____. 1988a. Rethinking Psychiatry: From Cultural Category to Personal Experience. New York: Free Press.
____. 1988b. The Illness Narratives. New York: Basic Books.
____. 1992. “Local Worlds of Suffering: An Interpersonal Focus for Ethnographies of Illness Experience.” Qualitative Health Research 2:127–134.
Kleinman, Arthur M., and Joan Kleinman. 1991. “Suffering and its Professional Transformation: Toward an Ethnography of Interpersonal Experience.” Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry 15:275–301.
Koenig, Hans G. 2007. “Religion, Spirituality and Psychotic Disorders.” Review Psiquiatrica Clinical 34:5–7.
Krippner, Stanley, and Patrick Welch. 1992. Spiritual Dimensions of Healing. New York: Irvington Publishers.
Leff, Julian. 1981. Psychiatry Around the Globe: A Transcultural View. New York: Dekker.
Levy, Aimhay. 1996. “Forensic Implications of the Difficulties of Defining Delusions.” Medical Law 15:257–60.
Lewis, Christopher A. 1998. “Cleanliness is next to Godliness: Religiosity and Obsessiveness.” Journal of Religion and Health 37:49–61.
____. 2001. “Cultural Stereotypes of the Effects of Religion on Mental Health.” British Journal of Medical Psychology 74:359–367.
Lindgren, Karen N., and Robert D. Coursey. 1995. “Spirituality and Serious Mental Illness: A Two-part Study.” Psychosocial Rehabilitation Journal 18:93–111.
Littlewood, Jenny. 1989. “A Model for Nursing using Anthropological Literature.” International Journal of Nursing Studies 26:221–229.
Littlewood, Roland. 1983. “The Antinomian Hasid.” British Journal of Medical Psychology 56:67–78.
____. 2000. “Psychiatry’s Culture.” In Anthropological Approaches to Psychological Medicine: Crossing Bridges, edited by Vedia Skultans, and John Cox, 66–94. London and Philadelphia: Jessica Kingsley Publishers.
Littlewood, Roland, and Maurice Lipsedge. 1997. Aliens and Alienists: Ethnic Minorities and Psychiatry. 3rd ed. London: Routledge.
Lock, Margaret, and Deborah Gordon. 1988. Biomedicine Examined. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic.
Loewenthal, Kate M. 1995. Mental Health and Religion. London: Chapham and Hall.
____. 2006. Religion, Culture and Mental Health. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
____. 2007. “Spirituality and Cultural Psychiatry.” In Textbook of Cultural Psychiatry, edited by Dinesh Bhugra, and Kamaldeep Bhui, 59–72. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Lovering, Sandy. 2008. “Arab Muslim Nurses’ Experiences of the Meaning of Caring.” PhD diss., The University of Sydney.
Lovinger, Robert J. 1984. Working with Religious Issues in Therapy. New York: Jason Aronson.
Lu, Francis G. 2004. “Culture and Inpatient Psychiatry.” In Cultural Competence in Clinical Psychiatry, edited by Wen-Shing Tseng, and Jon Streltzer, 21–37. Arlington, VA: American Psychiatry Publishing.
Lukoff, David. 2010. “Visionary Spiritual Experiences.” In Psychosis and Spirituality: Consolidating the new Paradigm, edited by Isabel Clarke, 205–215. Chichester, West Sussex: Wiley-Blackwell.
Lukoff, David, Francis G. Lu, and Robert Turner. 1992. “Toward a more Culturally Sensitive DSM-IV: Psychoreligious and Psychospiritual Problems.” The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease 180:673–682.
____. 1995. “Cultural Considerations in the Assessment and Treatment of Religious and Spiritual Problems.” The Psychiatric Clinics of North America 18:467–485.
____. 1996. “Diagnosis: A Transpersonal Clinical Approach to Religious and Spiritual Problems.” In Textbook of Transpersonal Psychiatry and Psychology, edited by Bruce W. Scotton, Allan B. Chinen, and John R. Battista, 231–249. New York: Basic Books.
____. 2011. “DSM-IV Religious and Spiritual Problems.” In Religious and Spiritual Issues in Psychiatric Diagnosis: A Research Agenda for DSM-V, edited by John R. Peteet, Francis G. Lu, and William E. Narrow, 171–199. Arlington, VA: American Psychiatric Association.
McEwen, Melanie. 2005. “Spiritual Nursing Care: State of the Art.” Holistic Nursing Practice 19:161–169.
Malinski, Violet M. 2002. “Developing a Nursing Perspective on Spirituality and Healing.” Nursing Science Quarterly 15:281–287.
Marsella, Anthony J., and Anne M. Yamada. 2007. “Culture and Psychopathology.” In Handbook of Cultural Psychology, edited by Shinobu Kitayama, and Dov Cohen, 797–818. New York: Guilford.
Martsolf, Donna, and Jacqueline R. Mickley. 1998. “The Concept of Spirituality in Nursing Theories: Differing Worldviews and Extent of Focus.” Journal of Advanced Nursing 27:294–303.
Matthews, Daryl, and Wen-Shing Tseng. 2004. “Culture and Forensic Psychiatry.” In Cultural Competence in Clinical Psychiatry, edited by Wen-Shing Tseng, and Jon Streltzer, 107–123. Arlington, VA: American Psychiatry Publishing.
Mitchell, Susan, and Glenn Roberts. 2009. “Psychosis.” In Spirituality and Psychiatry, edited by Chris Cook, Andrew Powell, and Andrew Sims, 39–61. London: The Royal College of Psychiatrists.
Narayanasamy, Aru, and Jan Owen. 2001. “A Critical Incident Study of Nurses: Responses to the Spiritual Needs of their Patients.” Journal of Advanced Nursing 33:446–455.
Neeleman, Jan, and Michael B. King. 1993. “Psychiatrists’ Religious Attitudes in Relation to their Clinical Practice: A Survey of 231 Psychiatrists.” Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica 88:420–424.
Nichter, Mark. 1981. “Idioms of Distress: Alternatives in the Expression of Psychosocial Distress: A Case Study.” Culture, Medicine, and Psychiatry 5:379–408.
Offer, Daniel, and Melvin Sabshin. 1966. Normality; Theoretical and Clinical Concepts of Mental Health. 1st ed. New York: Basic Books.
Oldnall, Andrew. 1995. “On the Absence of Spirituality in Nursing Theories and Models.” Journal of Advanced Nursing 21:417–418.
____. 2996. “A Critical Analysis of Nursing: Meeting the Spiritual Needs of Patients.” Journal of Advanced Nursing 23:138–144.
Oltmanns, Thomas F. 1988. “Approaches to the Definition and Study of Delusions.” In Delusional Beliefs, edited by Thomas F. Oltmanns, and Brendan A. Maher, 3–12. New York: Wiley.
Peters, Emmanuelle R., Stephen A. Joseph, and Philippa A. Garety. 1999. “Measurement of Delusional Ideation in the Normal Population: Introducing the PDI (Peters et al. Delusions Inventory).” Schizophrenia Bulletin 25:553–576.
Peters, Emmanuelle R. 2010. “Are Delusions on a Continuum? The Case of Religious and Delusional Beliefs.” In Psychoses and Spirituality: Consolidating the new Paradigm, edited by Isabel Clarke, 127–139. Chichester, West Sussex: Wiley-Blackwell.
Pierre, Joseph M. 2001. “Faith or Delusion? At the Crossroads of Religion and Psychosis.” Journal of Psychiatric Practice 7:163–172.
Post, Stephen G. 1992. “DSM-III-R and Religion.” Social Science and Medicine 35:81–90.
Prince, Raymond H. 1992. “Religious Experience and Psychopathology: Cross-cultural Perspectives.” In Religion and Mental Health, edited by John F. Schumaker, 81–290. New York: Oxford University Press.
Prince, Raymond H., Samuel O. Okpaku, and Larry Merkel. 1998. “Transcultural Psychiatry: A Note on Origins and Definitions.” In Clinical Methods in Transcultural Psychiatry, edited by Samuel O. Okpaku, 3–17. Washington, D.C.: American Psychiatric Press.
Rack, Philip. 1982. Race, Culture and Mental Disorder. London: Tavistock.
Rego, Simon A. 2009. “Culture and Anxiety Disorders.” In Culture and Mental Health: Sociocultural Influences, Theory and Practice, edited by Sussie Eshun, and Regan A.R. Gurung, 197–221. Chichester, West Sussex: Wiley Blackwell.
Romiszowski, Alexander J. 1984. Producing Instructional Systems: Lesson Planning for Individualised and Group Learning Activities. London: Kogan Page.
Russinova, Zlatka, Nancy J. Wewiorski, and Dane Cash. 2002. “Use of Alternative Health Care Practices by Persons with Serious Mental Illness: Perceived Benefits.” American Journal of Public Health 92:1600–1603.
Ryle, Gilbert. 1949. The Concept of Mind. London: Hutchinson.
Sanderson, Susan, Brian Vandenberg, and Paul Paese. 1999. “Authentic ReligiousExperience or Insanity”? Journal of Clinical Psychology 55:607–616.
Schulze, Beate, and Matthias C. Angermeyer. 2003. “Subjective Experiences of Stigma. A Focus Group Study of Schizophrenic Patients, their Relatives and Mental Health Professionals.” Social Science and Medicine 56:299–312.
Sewell, Hari. 2009. Working with Ethnicity, Race and Culture in Mental Health: A Handbook for Practitioners. London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers.
Shafranske, Edward P, and H. Newton Maloney. 1996. “Religion and the Clinical Practice of Psychology: A Case Formulation.” In Religion and the Clinical Practice of Psychology, edited by Edward P. Shafranske, 561–586. Washington, D.C.: American Psychological Association.
Shweder, Richard A. 1991. Thinking through Cultures. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Shweder, Richard A., and Edmund J. Bourne. 1982. “Does the Concept of the Person vary Cross-culturally?” In Cultural Conceptions of Mental Health and Therapy, edited by Anthony J. Marsella, and Geoffrey M. White, 97–137. Boston: Reidel.
Siddle, Ron. 2000. “Religious Beliefs in Schizophrenia.” PhD diss., University of Manchester.
Sims, Andrew C.P. 1992. “Symptoms and Beliefs.” Journal of the Royal Society of Health 112:42–46.
____. 1994. “‘Psyche’-spirit as well as Mind?” British Journal of Psychiatry 165:441–446.
____. 1995. Symptoms in the Mind. 2nd ed. London: WB Saunders.
Skultans, Vieda, and John Cox. 2000. “Introduction.” In Anthropological Approaches to Psychological Medicine: Crossing Bridges, edited by Vieda Skultans, and John Cox, 7–41. London and Philadelphia: Jessica Kingsley Publishers.
Speck, Peter. 1998. “Spiritual Issues in Palliative Care.” In Oxford Textbook of Palliative Medicine, edited by Derek Doyle, Geoffrey Hanks, and Neil Macdonald, 805–817. 2nd ed. New York: Oxford University Press.
Stein, Howard F. 1985. “The Culture of the Patient as a Red Herring in Clinical Decision Making: A Case Study.” Medical Anthropology Quarterly 12:2–5.
Stevenson, Andrew. 2010. Cultural Issues in Psychology: A Student’s Handbook. London and New York: Routledge.
Sullivan, W. Patrick. 1998. “Recoiling, Regrouping and Recovering: First-person Accounts of the Role of Spirituality in the Course of Serious Mental Illness.” In Spirituality and Religion in Recovery from Mental Illness, vol. 80, edited by Roger D. Fallot, 25–33. San Francisco, California: Jossey-Bass Publishers.
Swartz, Leslie. 1998. Culture and Mental Health: A Southern African View. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Swinton, John. 2001. Spirituality and Mental Health Care: Rediscovering a ‘forgotten’ Dimension. London: Kingsley.
Tek, Cenk, and Berna Ulug. 2001. “Religiosity and Religious Obsessions in Obsessive-compulsive Disorder.” Psychiatry Research 104:99–108.
Tepper, Leslie, Steven A. Rogers, Esther M. Coleman, and H. Newton Malony. 2001. “The Prevalence of Religious Coping among Persons with Persistent Mental Illness.” Psychiatric Services 52:660–665.
Tseng, Wen-Shing. 1997. “Overview: Culture and Psychopathology.” In Culture and Psychopathology: A guide to Clinical Assessment, edited by Wen-Shing Tseng, and Jon Streltzer, 1–28. New York: Brunner/Mazel.
____. 2001. Handbook of Cultural Psychiatry. San Diego, California: Academic Press.
____. 2003. Clinician’s Guide to Cultural Psychiatry. New York: Academic Press.
Tseng, Wen-Shing, and McDermott John F. 1981. Culture, Mind and Therapy: An Introduction to Cultural Psychiatry. New York: Bruner/Mazel.
Tseng, Wen-Shing, and Jon Streltzer. 2008. Cultural Competence in Health Care. New York: Springer.
VanDover, Leslie, and Jane M. Bacon. 2001. “Spiritual Care in Nursing Practice: A Close Up View.” Nursing Forum 36:18–29.
Vega, William A., William M. Sribney, Theresa Miskimen, Javier I. Escobar, and Sergio Aguilar-Gaxiola. 2006. “Putative Psychotic Symptoms in the Mexican American Population: Prevalence and Co-occurrence with Psychiatric Disorders.” Journal of Nervous Mental Disease 194:471–477.
Vespia, Kristin M. 2009. “Culture and Psychotic Disorders.” In Culture and Mental Health: Sociocultural Influences, Theory, and Practice, edited by Sussie Eshun, and Regan A.R. Gurung, 245–273. Chichester, West Sussex: Wiley-Blackwell.
Weinstein, Edwin A. 1962. Cultural Aspects of Delusions. London: Collier-MacMillan.
Westermeyer, Joseph. 1985. “Psychiatric Diagnosis across Cultural Boundaries.” American Journal of Psychiatry 142:798–805.
____. 1987. “Cultural Factors in Clinical Assessment.” Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology 55:471–478.
____. 1993. “Cross-cultural Psychiatric Assessment.” In Culture, Ethnicity and Mental Illness, edited by Albert, C. Gaw, 125–144. Washington, D.C.: American Psychiatric Press.
White, Geoffrey M., and Anthony J. Marsella. 1982. “Introduction: Cultural Conceptions in Mental Health Research and Practice.” In Cultural Conceptions of Mental Health and Therapy, edited by Geoffrey M. White, and Anthony J. Marsella, 3–38. Boston: Reidel Publishing.
Winkelman, Michael. 1999. Ethnic Sensitivity in Social Work. Dubuque, Iowa: Eddie Bowers.
____. 2005. Cultural Awareness, Sensitivity and Competency. Peosta, Iowa: Eddie Bowers.
____. 2009. Culture and Health: Applying Medical Anthropology. San Francisco, California: Jossey Bass.
Yossifova, Maria, and Kate M. Loewenthal. 1999. “Religion and the Judgement of Obsessionality.” Mental Health, Religion and Culture 2:145–152.
Young, Allan. 1982. “The Anthropologies of Illness and Sickness.” Annual Review of Anthropology 11:257–285.
Zinnbauer, Brian J., Kenneth I. Pargament, Brenda Cole, Mark S. Rye, Eric M. Butter, Timothy Belavich, Kathleen M. Hipp, Allie B. Scott, and Jill L. Kadar. 1997. “Religion and Spirituality: Unfuzzing the Fuzzy.” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 36:549–564.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Bassett, A.M., Baker, C. Normal or Abnormal? ‘Normative Uncertainty’ in Psychiatric Practice. J Med Humanit 36, 89–111 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10912-014-9324-2
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10912-014-9324-2