8. Cultivate cultural humility – the realization that our understanding of the other person’s background is always limited and incomplete.
9. Every encounter is a cross-cultural one.
10. Developing cultural competence is a lifelong journey and not a final destination.
Guidelines for Case Submission
Dr. Robert C. Like
We are requesting that you submit cases to cpnews@frontlinemedcom.com in which your understanding and treatment are affected by challenging cultural and family issues. We will then write back with our best answers about how one might proceed in such a case. Your case and our response will be published in Clinical Psychiatry News. Please limit your case description to 250 words and please include the following details:
1. Patient’s presenting problem or reason for the visit.
2. Patient’s age and gender.
3. Indicators of the patient’s identity – self-identified race/ethnicity, culture, religion/spirituality, socioeconomic status, education, among other variables.
4. Patient’s living situation, family composition, and genogram information (if available).
5. Patient’s geographic location (rural, suburban, urban) and occupation.
6. Patient’s and family’s degree of participation in their identified culture.
7. Questions of the individual submitting the case, including concerns about the role of the family and culture in the case, diagnosis, and treatment planning.
8. Please follow local ethical requirements, disguise the case to protect confidentiality and attend to HIPAA requirements, so that patients or family members reading the article would not recognize themselves.
Additional information might be requested, and editing of the case, questions, and commentary might be needed prior to final publication.
Please note that the opinions expressed in the case commentaries should not be seen as formal medical consultations and do not represent the opinions of GAP, CPN, or the institutions where the authors are employed or with which they are affiliated.
Contributors:
Michael S. Ascher, M.D. – University of Pennsylvania, Perelman School of Medicine
Alison M. Heru, M.D. – University of Colorado at Denver, Aurora
Roberto Lewis-Fernández, M.D. – Columbia University and New York State Psychiatric Institute
Robert C. Like, M.D., M.S. – Rutgers University, Robert Wood Johnson Medical School
Resources:
DSM-5 – Outline for Cultural Formulation and Cultural Formulation Interview: http://www.psychiatry.org/practice/dsm/dsm5/online-assessment-measures#Cultural
Clinical Manual of Couples and Family Therapy, Washington: American Psychiatric Publishing Inc., 2009.
Thinking Through Cultures: Expeditions in Cultural Psychology. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1991.
Clinical Manual of Cultural Psychiatry, 2nd Edition, Washington: American Psychiatric Publishing Inc., 2015.