Category: C

A branch of social psychiatry concerned with mentally ill persons in relation to their cultural environment. symptoms of behavior regarded as psychopathological in one society may be regarded as acceptable and normal in another.    

The culture with which someone identifies and to which he or she looks for standards of behavior.  

A method of incorporating sociocultural issues into the clinical formulation. The cultural formulation begins with a review of the individual’s cultural identity, which involves not only ethnicity, acculturation/biculturality, and language but also age, gender, socioeconomic status, sexual orientation, religious and spiritual beliefs, disabilities, political orientation, and health literacy, among other factors. A systematic review of…

An understanding of the issues that arise between genders, ages, religions, lifestyles, beliefs, physical capabilities, and cultures.  

A set of congruent behaviors, attitudes, and policies that come together in a system or agency or among professionals and that enable effective work in cross-cultural situations. Sensitivity to the cultural, philosophical, religious, and social preferences of people of varying ethnicities or nationalities. Professional skill in the use of such sensitivities facilitates the giving of…

The study of human society with emphasis on how values, customs, beliefs, language, and other patterns of behavior are transmitted by learning from past generations. The study of man and his works or of the learned behavior of man: technology, languages, religions, values, customs, mores, beliefs, social relationships, and family life and structure. Similar to…

Tolerance to a drug to which an individual has not been exposed because tolerance had developed to another substance over a period of long-term administration. A person who has developed tolerance to alcohol will have a diminished response to the usual dose of a denzodiazepine medication because tolerance to alcohol also has induced tolerance to…

A drug’s ability to suppress physical manifestations of substance dependence produced by another drug and to maintain the physically dependent state. It provides the rationale for the treatment of dependence on one substance (e.g., alcohol) by short-term substitution of a less dangerous and more controllable substance that is cross-dependent with that substance (e.g., the use…

The comparative study of mental illness and mental health among different societies, nations, and cultures. Often used synonymously with transcultural psychiatry.  

Psychological debriefing following a traumatic event, which was designed primarily for emergency response personnel, to allow traumatized individuals to discuss their thoughts, feelings, and behavior following the event.