Mental Health and the Role of Culture

Mental health can be defined as emotional, cognitive, and behavioural well-being. A mentally healthy person is able to think and behave appropriately, and functions at an optimal level in fulfilling the duties of daily life. 

A number of factors determine the mental health of a person. These include the particular lifestyle of an individual, their socioeconomic status, the nature of their relationships with others, biological factors such as the presence and absence of disease, and so forth. There is one very important factor that determines the mental health of an individual is the culture they live in. However, the role of culture often gets overlooked. Let's see how culture influences mental health. 

Perception

One obvious way in which culture influences mental health is the perception of the subject. Not every culture is open to the acceptance of mental illness. Mental health and mental illness are two sides of the same coin. If mental health is not promoted, mental illness develops. 

The ancient Spartan society is infamous today for breeding their children to become fierce warriors. Those who were considered too weak to be warriors faced social isolation. One can only speculate how it might have affected the mental health of the individual. It can be speculated that the Spartan society of that time was not much considerate of mental health. 

Among the native American population, some tribes do not stigmatise mental illness at all, while others stigmatise only some of them, while another group of tribes stigmatise all forms of mental illness (Abdullah & Brown, 2011).

Access to Service

What follows from the discussion above is the fact that access to mental health service is influenced by how the particular culture views mental health and illness. The greater the stigma surrounding mental illness, the difficult it is to access mental health services.

Carpenter-Song et al. (2010) found that in the US, European Americans seek greater help for their mental health needs than do African Americans and Latinos. The European Americans are more likely to view mental illness from a scientific viewpoint, while their counterpart are more likely to see it from a nonscientific viewpoint. The European Americans are also more likely to use medications for mental health issues.

The influence of culture on access to mental health services can also be seen in India. Since, we as a society, stigmatise mental health a lot, people are more likely to seek help from faith healers and quacks for mental illness, thinking of it being caused by evil spirits. 

Thus, it is important to develop culturally sensitive ways to promote mental health among the populace.