Concepts of Culture and Their Role in the Development of Culturally Competent Mental Health Services

The purpose of this article is to review different ways that culture has been used in developing the notion of culturally competent mental health services and to provide an enhanced definition of culture through a critical review of these ideas. We discuss different dimensions of culture that emerge as important issues in the development of bilingual/bicultural psychiatric programs. We provide a multifaceted definition of the influences of culture on the assessment of clients in culturally competent mental health programs. We illustrate the issues raised in this review with case examples from an evaluation of three inpatient bilingual/bicultural psychiatric programs.