Cultural Intelligence for Mental Health Professionals
I spoke recently at the 4th WA TRANSCULTURAL MENTAL HEALTH & 2nd Australasian REFUGEE HEALTH CONFERENCE 2013 in Perth. My workshop, Increasing your Cultural Intelligence, followed the opening keynote by Professor Fred Bemak titled; Critical dimensions in Transforming and Understanding Responsive Transcultural Mental Health. So Fred, too, was focusing on cultural intelligence and how to be effective in situations of cultural diversity.
Professor Bemak spoke about delivering mental health services in other countries or with other cultures where we may be dealing with people with different cultural value dimensions. He challenged practitioners to consider their practices from the perspective of their clients who may not share Western values. He asked - are our therapies, strategies and practice management standards universal?