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Essay on Culture and the Treatment of Abnormal Behaviors
The present paper provides an overview of the guiding theory and descriptive features of the abnormal behavior and its treatment with respect to multiculturalism. The treatment of abnormal behavior has been applied to various disorders including anxiety, aggression, depression, attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder, pain, and learning disabilities.
Apparently, mental illness is present in all societies. However, the frequencies of different types of mental illness vary, as do the social connotations. What is defined as a mild form of mental illness in one culture may be defined as normal behavior in another. For instance, people in Western societies who regularly carry on animated conversations with dead relatives or other supernatural beings are generally considered mentally ill. The same behavior is likely to be considered healthy and even enviable in a culture that has an indigenous world-view. Such a person would be thought fortunate for having direct communication with the supernatural world.Traditionally among many Native American societies, dreams and the visionary world were, in a sense, more real and certainly more important than the ordinary world of humans.
Cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) uses performance-based and cognitive interventions to produce changes in thinking, feeling, and behavior (Kendall, 1991). It concerns itself with both the external environment and the individual's internal processing of the world. In CBT, the therapist is a consultant, diagnostician, and educator. As a consultant, the therapist provides ideas for experimentation, helps sort through experiences, and promotes problem solving. As a diagnostician, the therapist gathers varied data and integrates them to determine what is best for the child client based on the current situation.
As an educator, the therapist participates with clients to influence them to think for themselves, maximize personal strengths, and acquire cognitive skills and behavior control.
Behavioral models focus on behavior; interventions work to change behavior and outcome evaluation is based on these changes. Cognitive therapy views changing behavior alone as too narrowly focused; however, in CBT the performance-based......
