The Influence Of Culture On Psychopathology

Perceptions regarding psychopathology differ among families, ethnic groups, cultures, and context. These perceptions regarding the origin and nature of various abnormal behaviours as well as people attitude towards those who present with psychopathology are strongly influenced by people’s culture and their religious principles. A lack of knowledge regarding different cultural perspectives on pathology might lead to misdiagnosis when a Western perspective of psychopathology is generalised to other contexts. Cultural differences often affect the therapeutic relationship between mental health professionals and their clients. It is then important for mental health professionals to use integrative approaches when working with people from traditional backgrounds as well as ensure a great deal of time is spent on understanding the African world view in order to successfully apply western methods. This is especially true in that what is considered normal in one culture may be considered abnormal or pathological in another culture. In order to understand the different views of psychopathology between Western and African perspective, one must first consider the overall influence of culture and worldviews.

Visser and Moleko (2012) define culture as the way in which certain groups make sense of their world and create meaning. Culture informs the specific values, standards, rituals, principles and beliefs held by a community. Culture is a reflection of shared social experiences which have been passed down from earlier generations. Culture has a significant impact on a person’s life experiences, their view of the world and also they way in which they perceive and express pathology. Hassim and Wagner (2013) mentioned that when practitioners look at psychopathology from a cultural perspective it is important to determine if the phenomenon is provoke, modified or labelled by the persons specific culture. The degree to which cultures accept and make sense of disorders will depend on the disorder itself; however there is no empirical information on the cross-cultural acceptance of disorders yet.

Besides the lack of information on cross-cultural views and acceptance of disorders, multi-cultural factors are considered in therapy and when dealing with psychopathology. The assessment and treatment of disorders, especially in children, are dependent on the individual’s relevant cultural values and their ethnic factors. The cultural background of an individual influence’s aspects like language, meaning of delusions and how they express emotion, making a considerable impact on behaviour that is labelled as abnormal. The social context in which Western and African societies differ has an impact on how the individuals in those contexts behave socially and develop during their lives, making these differences imperative in assessing how they view pathological behaviour. The universal view of pathology suggests that there are common components within different disorders and that the symptomology is only represented differently across culture groups. Thus, pathology is manifested in different ways across cultural groups but have the same underlying pathological constructs. In the DSM-IV, there have been cultural considerations and environmental aspects introduced to understanding pathology across cultures. Unfortunately, these considerations are not integrated well into the disorder criteria and are still not tailored to different culture groups because of the notion of universality in pathology. This rises a need for culturally-specific criteria that incorporates unique cultural factors that will be more applicable in African contexts and differentiate from western, mainstream views on pathology. Besides the differences in manifestation of the symptoms across cultures, culture also influences how the symptoms develop and what psychological risks and protective factors are present. Due to this lack of culturally-integrated pathological classifications, misclassifications are common in practise.

Practitioners must be aware of cultural impacts on behaviour and pathology, even if it might contrast or distinguish form criteria in the diagnostic manual from which the practitioner works. For practitioners working in an African context and having only western diagnostic frameworks to work from, many additional precautions need to be taken to appropriately assess and treat patients. This includes fully comprehending one’s own and other cultures relevant to the context. In an African perspective, pathology is determined by contextual-, cultural-, educational- and many other factors that have influences on understanding any mental disorder. These differences are clearly seen in literature that compares African pathology with western pathology regarding what a mental disorder is, prevalence of a disorder, and assessment of a disorder and treatment of a disorder. Thus, pathology across African cultures needs to be approached with unassertiveness and awareness.