Our New Publication! Cultural Contexts in Mental Health Services

The purpose of this book is to provide reliable cultural information to mental health practitioners in Canada and it is solely based on community input. To gather community input, we engaged eight facilitators who went out to their ethnic communities. Each interviewed at least ten individuals from diverse backgrounds that included professionals, homemakers, recent immigrants and refugees, foreign-born Canadian citizens, people of all ages and genders. Thus, the input from over one hundred community members has been used for the development of this collection. Occasionally, some research has also been used to fill the gaps in the information, but for the most part, what readers see here is what we have heard, recorded as accurately as possible.

In essence, this book embodies communities’ collective reflection of how they see and interpret their culture and would prove a reliable primer for psychologists who work with clients from different cultural backgrounds. It will be important to note that while the majority of the respondents believed that intervening psychologists should have an understanding of the clients’ cultural background, many thought that if a psychologist follows professional standards and meets a client with genuine respect and openness, they would be just as effective.

We are deeply indebted to all our contributors for these valuable insights and hope that mental health professionals would feel assisted by this endeavour in their incredibly challenging work.

This project would not have been possible without the gracious support of Human Rights Education and Multiculturalism Fund.