Promoting the Culturally Sensitive Diagnosis of Mexican Americans: Some Personal Insights
✍ Scribed by Myra Gonzales; Idalia Castillo-Canez; Henry Tarke; Fernando Soriano; Piedad Garcia; Roberto J. Velasquez
- Book ID
- 102291111
- Publisher
- American Counseling Association
- Year
- 1997
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 345 KB
- Volume
- 25
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0883-8534
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
This article presents a series of personal guidelines for promoting the culturally sensitive psychiatric diagnosis of Mexican American/CNcano clients. These guidelines are primarily based on the authors' collective experiences in diagnosing and treating this population.
Diagnostic assessment can be especially challenging when a clinician from one ethnic group uses the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th edition (DSM-Tv; American Psychiatric Association, 1994) to evaluate an individual from a different ethnic or cultural group. A clinician who is unfamiliar with the nuances of an individual's cultural frame of reference may incorrectly judge as psychopathology those normal variations in behavior, belief, or experiences that are particular to the individual's culture (DSM-N 1994). The purpose of this brief article is to present some of our personal insights into the psychiatric diagnosis of Mexican American or Chicano clients. These insights are intended to (a) supplement those made by other clinicians who have previously examined issues related to M g r a Gonzales is a doctoral student in counseling psychology at Michigan State University. Zdalia Castillo-Canez is a graduate student in clinical psychology at