Integration of cultural elements in the therapeutic milieu of a psychiatric day care unit.
For comprehensive understanding of a patient's mental crisis, a thorough knowledge of his cultural context is valuable, as this affords reciprocal translation of the patient's and therapist's codes. Elucidation of the cultural context belongs to the domain of clinical anthropology. In our Day Care Unit we utilize an ethno-psychiatric approach. The anthropologist employs the life-cycle method and a health/illness questionnaire. The former consists of a chronological narration of the patient's life events as rendered by him. Integration of this anthropological material with the anamnestic data is time saving, in that it furnishes the therapist with the opportunity to determine the focus of dynamic therapy already in an early phase of the treatment. The aim of the health/illness questionnaire is to discover the patient's conception of sickness in general and of his mental illness in particular. The information gathered by this anthropological tool guides the therapist in planning the appropriate treatment strategy, while at the same time it may predict the patient's compliance.
Rosca-Rebaudengo
P
P
Day Care Unit, Talbieh Mental Health Center, Jerusalem.
Minuchin-Itzigsohn
S
S
Gutman
F
F
D000328:Adult; D000553:Ambulatory Care; D000883:Anthropology; D003469:Culture; D003631:Day Care, Medical; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008016:Life Change Events; D001523:Mental Disorders / Q000188:drug therapy / Q000628:therapy; D008884:Milieu Therapy