Help Needed

Week 4

Respond to the following question in a minimum of 175 words each question, post must be substantive responses: 

Normal and commonly accepted behaviors and expression of personality can vary widely from culture to culture. As such, what are the risks of not taking cultural differences into consideration during assessment? What differences are noted in the presence or diagnosis of personality disorders across cultures?

Respond to classmates in a minimum of 175 words each person, post must be substantive responses: 

N.S

Whenever I read prompts like this regarding cultural context , I always cringe a little bit because I have had personal biases that made me misunderstand what people in my past were attempting to express about themselves.

What comes to mind first is a very sweet and lovely friend who was soft spoken but fiercely loyal to her loved ones, including me. She suffered for a number of years starting in junior year of high school and it continued in to her early 20's which was when she finally found resolve. She and her boyfriend knew they wanted to get married but she suffered over the idea because her boyfriend was wealthy and sophisticated and wanted to show her the world, however she wanted to fulfill her cultural obligations as a traditional Mexican woman. She would confide that wanted this new life with the man of her dreams but she could not accept it because it wasn't "right" for her and her ultimate familial goals.

I thought it was utterly ridiculous. I understood her concern but I also thought it was something she could just get over. Now I know very different.

The risks of not taking cultural differences in to account is that we might apply generalizations to what we think should be happening or consider traits to be pathological as opposed to culturally relevant. Chapter 18 states that personality disorders are often inappropriately categorized "due to a lack of understanding on the part of Western society regarding the cultural nuances and upbringing of non-Western populations."Pomeroy, E. (2015).

References

Pomeroy, E. (2015). The clinical assessment workbook : balancing strengths and differential diagnosis (2nd ed.). Boston,, MA: Cengage Learning.

T.W.

When I first read this the first thing that came to mind was the Japanese culture of not looking someone in the eye, mainly pertaining to children. When looking at the list of personality disorder, the child could be diagnosed with a couple based on their "intentional" lack of eye contact based on their cultural norm. Those diagnoses may not be correct either if the criteria is followed. The lack of eye contact could be perceived as low self-esteem, as not wanting to communicate or build relationships, defiance, disrespect, rude, or cognitive dysfunction such as they do not understand or comprehend what he/she is being told.

I found this interesting article when I was researching.

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0118094