Culturally Safe Practice and Mental Health Assessment

ASSESSING MENTAL DISORDER 1
Culturally Safe Practice and Mental Health Assessment
The Course Name
Professor
Name the University
The City and State
The Date

ASSESSING MENTAL DISORDER 2
Describe how his recent life events might impact Justin's health and well-being.
When he was growing, Justin had a vision that one day he would look for a job and be able to
support his family the best way he could. In high school, Justin did not do very well as he describes
himself as "not clever." As a result, other students laughed at him and bullied him from his race. When he
was 15 years old, he was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes mellitus. This made him feel disappointed in
himself and pitied himself for he thought that this had shuttered his dream of helping his diabetic parents.
In his eleventh year of schooling, his father was hospitalized, and this forced him to drop out of school.
This made him go looking for casual jobs, which he has been doing since then.
A couple of years later, his uncle died. He was a very close friend to him, a mentor, a role model
and like a father to him. Therefore, losing him had a significant impact on Justin's life. After his uncle's
burial ceremony Justin goes to his house and continuously grief for the loss. He stays in his room mostly,
refrain from social contributions and participation. He also stops quit the transportation job that he had
recently acquired. He develops a feeling of anger, despair, hopelessness, worthlessness and this result in
clinical depression. Besides, Justin loses appetite and this result in a massive loss of weight within a short
period. He later develops a suicidal thought as he feels that his family would be better off without him.
After his mental health assessment in the local Health Centre, Justin is referred to the City
General Hospital for further treatment. He, therefore, leaves his family and the community and goes to
the city. This makes him feel as if he was a disappointment to his relatives and the community as he was
supposed to be there for them and supports them – especially his parents due to their diabetic conditions.

ASSESSING MENTAL DISORDER 3
How might Justin’s cultural interpretation of mental illness be different from your
own
Unlike Justin’s culture, my community has a cultural belief that associate mental illness
with evil spirits. They believe that any person who is mentally ill could either be possessed by an
evil spirit or has abused drugs such as bung. A traditional healer is therefore called upon such an
occurrence to determine if the cause of the illness. If it's found that possession causes the disease
by an evil spirit then, the person is excommunicated and sent to unique traditional healers for
specialized treatments. If the cause is found to be the misuse of drugs, the person is sent to a
rehabilitation Centre for the appropriate procedures. In both cases, these people are said to be
violent and capable of causing harm to the community members.
My attitudes and values towards mentally ill people could impact communications
with Justin.
Negative attitude and stigmatization of people with mental disorders are prevalent among
people, in any community. That is, whenever one comes across mentally hill people, he/she tends
to look down onto them. This person may act whirred doe to the perception that he/she has
towards mental illness. Take my case for example. Where I come from, the community associate
mental disorders with evil spirits and drugs. Therefore, anyone growing up in such setup may
tend to despise people who are mentally ill.
Having grown up in a community where they believe that mental illness is either caused
by the evil spirits or the abuse of substances such as drugs and that people with mental disorders
are often violent and very dangerous, I would find it very difficult to communicate with Justin.
Even if I found myself in a situation where the professionalism suggests that I must talk with him