Month: February 2010

Cross-Cultural Psychiatry: A Special Report from Psychiatric Times


Psychiatric Times issues periodic special reports, and the latest one features a wealth of articles and ideas on cross-cultural psychiatry.

Ronald Wintrob, chair of the World Psychiatric Association–Transcultural Psychiatry Section, writes the Introduction to Cross-Cultural Psychiatry for this special report. He notes how migration has increased over the past 20 years, and that 12.86% of the US population are immigrants. Psychiatrists have put increasing effort into engaging these populations.

One of the most practical applications of cultural psychiatry to clinical practice in all fields of medicine is the open-ended questioning of patients and their families about their personal and family background characteristics. This includes identifying features of race, ethnicity, religion, and socioeconomic class, relevant immigration history, experiences of acculturative stress, and personal and family aspirations. A discussion of these background characteristics can lead naturally to the clinician’s exploration of the presenting clinical symptoms and history. Knowledge of the patient’s background will increase rapport with patients and families and aid the process of collecting a more reliable history. In addition, it will improve the likelihood of treatment adherence. This process has been described as “cultural case formulation.”

Three main articles comprise the special issue:

Religion, Spirituality, and Mental Health by Simon Dein, senior lecturer of anthropology and medicine at University College London. This piece provides an in-depth examination of what is currently known about the relationships between religion and mental health, and also includes a handy set of four check points that summarize the main themes of the article.

Cultural Considerations in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, by Toby Measham, Jaswant Guzder, Cécile Rousseau, and Lucie Nadeau, all in the department of psychiatry at McGill, which presents a series of guidelines and suggestions for how to handle cross-cultural issues in practice with children and adolescents

Cultural and Ethnic Issues in Psychopharmacology, by Keh-Ming Lin, professor emeritus in psychiatry at UCLA. This piece goes from the placebo effect to genetic variation, and argues that “cultural and ethnic influences… should be regarded as central in determining the success of treatment interventions.”

Under the whole category of cross-cultural psychiatry at Psychiatric Times, you can also find other articles, including this one by J. David Kinzie on A Model for Treating Refugees Traumatized by Violence.

Link to the Introduction to the Special Report on Cross-Cultural Psychiatry.

SlowTV: Mind and Its Potential


The Mind and Its Potential Conference was hosted in Sydney, Australia back in November.

Mind & Its Potential is your opportunity to hear the world’s top scientists, psychologists and philosophers explain how to apply the new science of the brain in education, medicine, business and your life.

After we previewed it, Paul wrote up a nice review of the conference. Now SlowTV is featuring the videos of several of the talks.

Michael Valenzuela, Neuroplasticity and the ‘Use it or Lose it’ Brain

“Dr Michael Valenzuela describes the concept of neuroplasticity in the brain. He cites the tangible benefits that mental and physical activity have on the development and ongoing functioning of the brain to demonstrate how our neural pathways work on a ‘use it or lose it’ basis.”

Dr Daniel Siegel MD on We Feel, Therefore We Learn: The Neuroscience of Social Emotion.

Here Siegel speaks about “Interpersonal Neurobiology…an interdisciplinary view of life experience that draws on over a dozen branches of science to create a framework for understanding of our subjective and interpersonal lives.”

Baroness Susan Greenfield, The Brain, the Mind and Life in the 21st Century.

“A lively presentation” on “mind function and dysfunction in the modern world,” i.e., technology is killing your brain, but within the broader context of how the brain helps you be you (snarky, I know, but actually it’s a good presentation on relating plasticity with individuality and experience up until 14:50 or so).

And a group discussion featuring Susan Greenfield, Daniel Siegel, Michael Valenzuela, and Jane Burns that is hosted by Alan Saunders, Changing the Brain: Mind over Matter?

“This expert panel addresses how recent discoveries in neuroscience have changed the way we conceive of brain function. Recent thinking proposes that the brain is an infinitely malleable organ, constantly changing and heavily influenced by its surroundings and by the functions that it is required to perform.”

As a bonus, you can also get Prof Jason Mattingley on SlowTV speaking on What Can Neuroscience Tell Us about Consciousness?

“Mattingley looks at the different understandings of consciousness and what the field of neuroscience can add to our collective understanding of how the mind works.”

Wednesday Round Up #101

Back to the old categories approach, with thanks to my student Casey Dolezal for help. So top of the list, then anthropology and writing for a broader public, mind, a nature/culture mix of anthropology, health, and finally some good stuff on addiction at the end.

Top of the List

Sharon Begley, The Depressing News about Anti-Depressants
Prozac Nation needs to face the data – anti-depressants don’t work as well as we thought, especially for more mild cases of depression (no better than placebos in the meta-analysis)

Michael Greenwell, Howard Zinn – 1922 to 2010
The “radical historian” Howard Zinn is remembered.

Lorenz, Pecha Kucha – The Future of Presenting Papers?
Papers presented the Pecha Kucha way – a visual speed presentation – is becoming more popular. Papers are not read but instead shown on a screen in 20 images, displayed for twenty seconds each.

Natalie Angier, Abstract Thoughts? The Body Takes Them Literally
The NY Times gets embodied!

Rosa Golijan, A Virtual Jam Session
Very cool music video – a rap/jazz fusion – put together by people playing virtually together

Kirstin Butler, Reading the Red Book
Carl Jung’s lifework now published and reviewed

Eric Taub, The Web Way to Learn a Language
A useful overview of how to learn a language online

Writing and Anthropology’s Public Presence

Chris Kelty, Why Is There No Anthropology Journalism?
A call to report more queries, debates, and findings from anthropology

Continue reading “Wednesday Round Up #101”

Access Denied


Access Denied is a great new anthropology blog on immigration and health. In particular, the editorial team focuses on the “vital global health challenge: unauthorized migrants’ and immigrants’ lack of access to health care services.”

As they write about their initiative:

Do unauthorized im/migrants have a right to health? To medical care? To publicly funded care? In this blog, medical anthropologists host a lively conversation among scholars, activists, policymakers and others on the complex and contentious issue of unauthorized migration and health. We approach the issue comparatively, with attention to power, cultural context, and historical depth. Through empirically grounded, critical dialogue, we aim to rethink current debates and inform policy about unauthorized migration and the right to health care.

Recent posts include What do Haitian Earthquake Survivors and the Super Bowl Have in Common?, which addresses the mounting controversy over stopping survivors of the Haitian earthquake from entering Florida to receive urgently needed health care, and Chutes and Ladders: Comprehensive Immigration Reform and Health Care Access for Undocumented Workers, which provides a long-term view of immigration and health using the lens of Mexican illegal immigrants to Idaho.

The Access Denied team also puts together regular News Round Ups, with the most recent one delving into the serious problems surrounding deaths among immigrants held in custody by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

The overall site delivers a complete package, including an extensive working bibliography, a good list of web resources on immigration and health, and most importantly Access Denied’s recommendations for Action Steps you can take to address the problems surrounding immigration and health.

Access Denied was founded by a great group of people, including Sarah Willen, a friend of mine from graduate school and now assistant professor at Southern Methodist University, and Heide Castañeda, an assistant professor at the University of South Florida, whom I had the pleasure of meeting on my recent trip there.

Other founding members include Nolan Kline, a graduate student at the University of South Florida, and Jessica Mulligan, a post-doc at the Holleran Center for Community Action and Public Policy. You can see the entire team here, including profiles of the founders and guest contributors.

Those guest contributors have included some outstanding senior people, including Didier Fassin, who just joined the prestigious Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, on Illegal Immigrants as the Last Frontier of Welfare, and Peter Guarnaccia, Professor in Human Ecology at Rutgers, on Health Care Reform Is Intimately Linked to Immigration Reform.

For even more, go check out the new medical anthropology blog Access Denied.