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Culture and Mind: Psychiatry's Missing Diagnosis A three part series in The Washington Post June 26-28, 2005 Part 1: Modern psychiatry asserts that mental illnesses are basically organic disorders of the brain. But a growing number of psychiatrists, many of whom are racial minorities, say doctors are ignoring the role of ethnicity, gender, sex, nationality and religious beliefs in the origin and outcome of mental disorders. Part 2: A little-known study by the World Health Organization study discovered that the outcome of schizophrenia, a deadly mental illness involving hallucinations and disordered thinking, is better in poor countries with limited medical infrastructure than in developed countries like such as the United States. Scientists have struggled for decades to explain why. Part 3: Blacks and Hispanics in the United States are far more likely to be diagnosed with serious mental disorders than whites. Now, a group of experts who advocate cultural competence are asking whether bias may influence psychiatric diagnosis. |