{"id":29102,"date":"2022-07-01T07:49:49","date_gmt":"2022-07-01T11:49:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/healthymindsphilly.org\/?p=29102"},"modified":"2022-07-05T13:10:15","modified_gmt":"2022-07-05T17:10:15","slug":"the-search-for-culturally-competent-care","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/healthymindsphilly.org\/dev\/blog\/the-search-for-culturally-competent-care\/","title":{"rendered":"The Search for Culturally Competent Care"},"content":{"rendered":"

Fans of the award-winning TV series \u2018This is Us\u2019 may remember the episode where Randall decides to switch therapists. The character\u2014a successful commodities trader turned Philadelphia City Councilman\u2014is African American, was raised by a white family, and struggles with anxiety and PTSD. He admits that he isn\u2019t comfortable sharing many of his feelings with his current therapist. His new doctor is <\/span>\u201ccool, smart, funny, Black, young father… we got a lot in common,\u201d Randall explains.<\/span><\/p>\n

Does your therapist \u2018get\u2019 you? The answer to this question is a key factor in mental health recovery.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Finding a provider you trust, who you connect with and who has experience working with people like you, isn\u2019t always easy. Yet it is especially important for members of minority groups\u2014many of whom suffer generational trauma from systemic racism, yet don\u2019t receive the treatment they need.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The numbers are telling. Forty-five percent of U.S. adults with mental illness receive help, but just 23 percent of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders\u00a0(AAPI) adults, 33 percent of Black adults, 34 percent of Hispanic\/Latinx adults, and very few Native people with mental illness get treatment.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

This is National Minority Mental Health Awareness Month\u2014a time to focus on the unique struggles around mental illness that minority communities in the United States face, along with the solutions. <\/span>Finding culturally competent providers is one of them.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

What is cultural competence in mental health?\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n

Cultural competence is understanding that a person\u2019s values, experiences, and personal beliefs are shaped by their ethnic and community identities and the influences that come with it. These factors can also explain why a patient avoids treatment and how they perceive and express symptoms, cope, adhere to treatment, and attach stigma to mental illness.<\/span><\/p>\n

Exploring a patient\u2019s cultural identity may help providers tailor mental health treatment. On the flip side, cultural incompetence likely contributes to underdiagnosis and\/or misdiagnosis in Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) communities, writes Mental Health America. \u201cLanguage differences between patient and provider, stigma of mental illness among BIPOC, and cultural presentation of symptoms are some of the many barriers to care that explain these errors in the diagnostic process.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Assessing a provider\u2019s level of cultural sensitivity\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n

It starts with asking the right questions. The National Alliance on Mental Illness advises that you ask:<\/span><\/p>\n