Sociocultural Issues in Psychiatry ― A Casebook and Curriculum

As the demographics shift within the US population, the importance of culture on mental health diagnosis and treatment has become critical for education and clinical training in psychiatry. While it's impossible to gain an in-depth understanding of every culture, clinicians need to have the skills and knowledge required to provide culturally respectful care for an increasingly diverse clinical population. By explaining fundamental concepts in cultural psychiatry using a case-based format, clinicians and educators in the mental health fields will be able to reduce cultural clashes and unproductive clinical encounters. Although similar books have focused on providing guidelines for working with discrete populations (e.g., African Americans, Asian Americans, LGBTQ), the purpose of Sociocultural Issues in Psychiatry is to enhance clinicians' knowledge and skills by translating theory into practice across diverse patient populations and clinical contexts. Mental health clinicians at all levels, trainees, or practitioners, will benefit from the content and education provided in this book.

Nhi-Ha Trinh, MD, MPH, serves as the Director for the MGH Department of Psychiatry Center for Diversity as well as the Director of Multicultural Studies and the Director of Clinical Services at the MGH Depression Clinical and Research Program. As Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and Associate Director, HMS Holmes Society, she is committed to medical student and psychiatry resident education and mentorship. Her academic work focuses on Sociocultural issues in psychiatry and she shares her passion for this topic as course Co-Director of the MGH/McLean Residency Sociocultural Curriculum. Dr. Trinh earned her medical degree at the University of California, San Francisco, and her Master of Public Health at the University of California at Berkeley, specializing in Epidemiology. She completed residency training in Adult Psychiatry at the Mass General/McLean Adult Psychiatry Training Program and a fellowship in Geriatric Psychiatry at McLean Hospital.

Justin A. Chen, MD, MPH, is Medical Director of Ambulatory Psychiatry and Co-Director of Primary Care Psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital. His interests include cross-cultural psychiatry, stigma, racial/ethnic disparities in mental health service utilization, and medical education. He has regularly chaired symposia related to these topics at annual meetings of the American Psychiatric Association and the Society for the Study of Psychiatry and Culture. He is dedicated to teaching and mentorship, serving as Associate Director of Medical Student Education in Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, as a Training Mentor and Co-Director of the longitudinal Sociocultural Psychiatry curriculum for MGH/McLean psychiatry residents, and as an Assistant Professor at Harvard Medical School. As Executive Director and Co-Founder of the MGH Center for Cross-Cultural Student Emotional Wellness, a nonprofit consortium of clinicians, educators and researchers, he delivers talks and trainings for families, clinicians, and educators throughout the United States on promoting the emotional health and psychological resilience of diverse student populations. Dr. Chen received his undergraduate and medical degrees from Yale University. He completed his residency in adult psychiatry at MGH/McLean followed by a Master of Public Health degree in Clinical Effectiveness at the Harvard-T.H. Chan School of Public Health and a Dupont-Warren Research Fellowship focused on improving engagement of depressed Chinese immigrants into mental health care at South Cove Community Health Center.