From the Back Cover
Cultural diversity is a global challenge for mental health services. The changing demography of communities requires rethinking approaches to cultural competence for health professionals and institutions. Cultural consultation is a way to improve the quality of mental health care by providing a nuanced understanding of the predicaments that prompt diverse clients to seek help, and the social contexts of their mental health problems, to guide clinical assessment and intervention.
Cultural Consultation explores the practice of cultural consultation as a strategy to improve the quality of mental health care for diverse populations. The contributors, who have worked together at an innovative clinical service, frame best practices in psychiatry clinical psychology, and social work in relation to empathy, human rights, and culturally responsive and ethically sound care. A detailed model of the process of cultural consultation, from initial intake, through assessment, to recommendations and referrals, provides guidelines for clinical practice. Expert contributors examine specialized settings (medical, psychiatric emergency, inpatient, social/legal services), populations (remote, indigenous, child and youth), and contextual issues in the care of people with a wide range of mental health problems. Numerous case examples, charts, and tools add depth for readers interested in developing similar services or enhancing existing practice. Among the key areas covered:
- Working with interpreters and culture brokers.
- Family systems in cultural consultation.
- Gender, power, and ethnicity in cultural consultation.
- Consultation and mediation with racialized and marginalized communities.
Collaborative care and primary care consultation.- Cultural consultation with refugees.
A unique guide to challenges and opportunities in contemporary practice, Cultural Consultation will be immediately useful for health care professionals, clinical psychologists, and cultural consultants and provide a versatile knowledge source for years to come.
Laurence J. Kirmayer, M.D. is James McGill Professor and Director, Division of Social and Transcultural Psychiatry, McGill University and Editor-in-Chief of Transcultural Psychiatry. He directs the Culture & Mental Health Research Unit at the Jewish General Hospital where he conducts research on the mental health of Aboriginal peoples; mental health services for immigrants and refugees and the cultural basis of psychiatric theory and practice. He was founding director of the Cultural Consultation Service.
Jaswant Guzder, M.D. is Associate Professor of Psychiatry and of Social Work, McGill University, and Head of Child Psychiatry and Director of the Childhood Disorders Day Hospital at the Jewish General Hospital. She was Co-Director of the Cultural Consultation Service from its inception. From 1980 to 1984, she worked in Mumbai, India as a psychiatric consultant and psychoanalyst and continues to consult in India for Ummeed, Angaan and Tata Instituteof Social Services. Her current academic activities include cross-cultural training, family therapy training, and and child trauma projects in Canada, India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Turkey, Israel and Jamaica.
Cécile Rousseau, M.D., M.Sc. is Associate Professor, Department of Psychiatry & Director, Transcultural Psychiatry Service, CSSS de la Montagne, where she has built a team addressing refugee and immigrant children's mental health, with particular interest in children of war. She has conducted epidemiological and ethnographic research on the personal, family and cultural determinants of refugee children's mental health. She has developed innovative school prevention programs for refugee and immigrant children and adolescents using creative expression workshops. In partnership with researchers in international law and community organizations, she has analyzed the cultural and psychological construction of immigration policies and their consequences for the mental health of refugees.
