References: Fong and Furuto, Culturally Competent Practice
References: Fong and Furuto, Culturally Competent Practice
When Your Patient is a Hmong Refugee, under the American Journal of Nursing, provides guidelines to the medical community in how to effectively understand Hmong patients. To understand this subject, author Betty Rairdan and Zana Rae Higg, conducted interviews with 13 families from five different clans, all refugee families and have resettled in Washington. The families, mentioned many similar ideas that were presented in The Spirit Catches You And You Fall. For instance, all families mentioned the importance of politeness. Under a patrilineal clan, older males would make the decisions. Along the older, Shaman (spiritual leader and healer) would also have authority over decision making when it comes to a person’s illness and procedures. Being polite also comes into play, how a doctor or nurse delivers a bad new. Hmong’s view bad news by mixing it with an element of hope. We see this demonstrated in the book, told numerous times that Lia was going to die, Foua signed for the removal of the meds and IV. Doctor Peggy believed…
Treatment is care provided to improve a situation, especially medical procedures or applications that are intended to relieve illness or injury. In the Hmong society, people go to a txiv neeb, a shaman, who is believed to be a “person with a healing spirit” (Fadiman, 1997, p. 21) to cure their illnesses. A txiv neeb knows that to cure an illness you must treat the soul, in addition to the body. This is important to the Hmong because in their society the soul has a great deal of importance. In Anne Fadiman`s The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, the Lees, a family of Hmong refugees from Laos, are placed in a difficult situation when their three…
As a whole, European settlers and Native Americans were constantly clashing over ‘ownership’ of land, as well as simple quarrelling in general. Between the spread of disease and multiple wars involving the foreigners and natives, the Native American population in the 17th and 18th centuries was on a decline. Additionally, there was a major loss in Native American culture due to the Christianization of the Indians by European missionaries and an increase in trade. European explorers and settlers had a negative impact on American Indians because of the massive loss of life, whether because of war or disease, and a loss of culture amongst the people.…
There are many concerns for therapists when treating clients from a multicultural population. Learning how to effectively work and communicate with clients from a culturally diverse population is part of the therapeutic process of the therapist. Therapists have received special training in areas of expertise that helps to improve the outcome and the performance of their client dramatically, simply because they have gain insight about the client, and the ability to address the client’s needs. This paper is intended to highlight these concerns in three different setting. The first setting will discuss how client from a culturally diverse population might be affected when receiving medical treatment. The second setting will discuss the therapy…
Having knowledge of Asian Indian culture is imperative in order to succeed in the therapeutic process. Many Asian Indian elders are more interested in protecting their traditions than accepting change; “the lack of change in the attitude of Indian parents and their expectations based on the traditional Indian value system is a major source of strain among Indian families residing in the United States. In our judgment, parent-child relationships are the most pressing issue confronting the Indian community in the United States” (Watson, 1999).…
No two cultural or society is exactly the same. The Iroquois and Christians display how every culture has something that makes it different from any other culture. Every culture in one way or the other holds a deity of some sort to a higher status. What often differs between the cultures is the level of importance or value placed on this higher deity. The Bible places God on a level much higher than any humans could ever be on. God is seen as the almighty creator of everything in this world from plants, to animals and humans: “God saw all that he made, and it was very good” (New International Version 1:31). God is the one who created every little detail of this world from day/night to the oceans and skies. This is very different from the Iroquois…
Black Americans, segregation, and slavery. Most of the people who have studied American history recognize the inhumane actions towards people of color during the 1960’s and 1980’s. Yet, people often are not aware of the similar acts perpetrated on the Native Americans during the same period of time. The Native Americans had to suffer their past of external shame imposed on their culture and tradition by the White American society, followed by a coercion of White American culture due to the government proposal of the “Indian problem.” Nevertheless, the Native Americans maintained their pride in their identity and culture internally, within their tribes, and carried out such acts as Ghost Dance, valuing their own tradition. While it may seem paradoxical, both shame and pride of culture and identity simultaneously resonate in Native Americans today as a means of letting go of the unpleasant past and moving on to the future with a new hope.…
In today’s culturally diverse populations, it can be difficult to formulate a treatment plan that works universally. By the time all diverse aspects are considered, treatment plans that may work for one culture do not always help another. Problems and issues may be the same, but reactions to treatments can differ. Most generally there is more than one issue that needs to be addressed in order to help a client overcome physical and mental barriers that prevent him or her from leading a fulfilling life.…
History is one of the world’s greatest mysteries as even though humanity has access to tons of information collected over hundreds of years, there is not an absolute certainty that what humans know is fact. As a result, there are many misinterpretations regarding events in human history. For example, Christopher Columbus is believed to be the relationship between Native Americans and settling Americans has always been rocky. Citizens of the U.S.A have stripped these people of their rights and cast them away like an old candy wrapper, however this was a long time ago. Many are debating whether the citizens of the present U.S.A are responsible for the mistakes of the past. Who is responsible should not be the question asked, but why are we not…
Native American healing is based on the belief that everyone and everything on earth is interconnected. Not just interconnectivity within races, but interconnectivity amongst humans, the land, and the nonhuman. In Leslie Marmon Silko’s Ceremony, the main character Tayo is both of Pueblo and Western ancestry: two racial identities that clash in their belief systems. Growing up with his Native American traditions was embedded in his way of being, however Western standards did not accept these traditions. Specifically, these differences in Western and Native American cultural identity are shown through the story of the land in respect to nature and the story of the animal. Tayo’s journey to understanding and accepting both Western and Pueblo traditions allowed him to develop a key to consciousness of his own personal identity and acceptance of his mixed-race.…
Jackson, L.C., Schmutzer, P.A., Wenzel, A., and Tyler, J.D. (2006). Applicability of cognitive-behavior therapy with American Indian individuals. Psychotherapy: Theory, Research, Practice, Training, 43(4), 506-517.…
The purpose of the present study was to examine the relationship between culture and the clinical practice of psychological assessment. Over the past decade, psychologists have come under criticism for maintaining a mainstream cultural status quo in clinical practice. In particular, indigenous peoples throughout the world have pointed out that clinical psychologists, in both research and practice, have not successfully been able to understand or deliver culturally appropriate services due to Psychology's entrenched, Western European, ethnocentric perspective. In order to understand the difficulties that psychologists might face in performing assessments on people of First Nations heritage, a collaborative research project was undertaken with a process and heuristic orientation. Collaboration occurred between myself and the Social Development Sector of the Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations. Multiple sources of data were used in the study, including observation, open-ended interview, and analysis of archival data. All data were qualitative in nature. Analyses included qualitative content and process analysis as well as indwelling. Included in the project is a review of the literature in Cultural Psychology and the cultural aspects of Psychological Assessment. Results from the study suggest that assumptions and biases can occur between mainstream psychologists and First Nations people that will interfere with competent and accurate assessment and communication. These assumptions and biases derive from both the culture of the psychologist and the discipline of Psychology itself. Understanding of the First Nations person with whom the psychologist is attempting to interact will not occur unless the psychologist is prepared to undertake a deep learning about the heritage First Nations peoples. In addition, the psychologist must be willing to enter into a process of self-examination in order to understand what beliefs, heritage, training, and experiences he or she…
References: Crawford, T. A., & Lipsedge, M. (2004). Seeking help for psychological distress: The interface of Zulu traditional healing and Western biomedicine. Mental Health, Religion & Culture, 7(2), 131-148. doi:10.1080/13674670310001602463…
Berry, J., & Kim, U. (1987). Acculturation and mental health. In P. Dasen, J. Berry, & N.…
I am Indigenous NZ Maori and place myself forward as an ‘Indigenous holistic bricoleur’ however fully acknowledge that this is a process in development and therefore this assignment only reflects the very beginning of my journey into an “emerging new bricoleur” (Lincoln 2001). One may disagree with ‘Indigenous holistic’ when viewed as indigenous cultures having never separated body, mind, soul & spirit unlike their western counter parts, and state that Indigenous, is holistic. I use both terms in being careful to not mesh Indigenous with Euro-Western & Eastern-Western paradigms of research into holism. “The connection between structural subordination and indigeneity led to the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which acknowledges the dual reality of many Indigenous people who live in two worlds” (Mertens, Cram, Chilisea 2013, p.13). If I do not consider the effects of colonialism and the displacement that has on an individual and the collective, then I am not being true to the Indigenous holistic bricoleur. I am introspective to how the bricolage is…