Over 100 million people in the United States identify as belonging to a racial and/or ethnic minority group. Individuals with a serious mental illness who also identify as a racial/ethnic minority tend to receive poorer quality of care, have less access to services, and experience higher dropout rates and poorer outcomes when compared to their white counterparts. These differences have spurred initiatives to integrate cultural perspectives into evidence-based treatments.
This practice brief is intended to help clinicians — particularly those who administer cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) for individuals with serious mental illness — to enhance their cultural awareness and incorporate culturally relevant practices into their formulation and treatment approach.
Scholars have developed an evidence-based framework for adapting CBT for individuals from non-Western cultures that may also be applicable to cultural minority groups in the United States. Culture refers to, “the set of distinctive spiritual, material, intellectual, and emotional features of society or a social group, and […] it encompasses, in addition to art and literature, lifestyles, ways of living together, value systems, traditions, and beliefs.” Thus, culture can impact an individual’s life experiences, core values, belief systems, patterns of thinking, attributional styles, as well as beliefs about mental illness and appropriate treatment approaches. These factors are all important components of the CBT model and highlight the importance of considering cultural concepts in case formulation and treatment.
This brief, developed by the Northwest Mental Health Technology Transfer Center, will describe several techniques that may assist clinicians in integrating culture into their CBT practice.
Population: Everyone
Links to Resources:
- Read the full brief, Cultural Considerations in Applying Cognitive Behavioral Therapy to Racial and Ethnic Minority Groups with Serious Mental Illness
- Read the article, Mental Health Disparities, Treatment Engagement, and Attrition Among Racial/Ethnic Minorities with Severe Mental Illness
- Read the article, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy: A Meta-Analysis of Race and Substance Use Outcomes
- Learn more about the Northwest Mental Health Technology Transfer Center
- Learn more about cognitive behavioral therapy
Date: 2021