DSM-IV-TR & Western Diagnostic Hegemony
In addition to the broader dimensions of western colonial and cultural influence on indigenous psychologies, there are specific limitations for indigenous psychologies that arise from the pervasive (nearly universal) acceptance of western diagnostic tools as the primary source of diagnostic features/criteria for psychopathology (Thakker & Ward, 1998: Poznyak, Reed, & Clark, 2011). The American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, fourth edition, text revision (2000), continues to be used as an overarching framework for mental illness across cultures, and may suppress or distort indigenous understandings of mental illness of psychopathological processes. By virtue of its culture-specific origin and oversight the DSM-IV-TR is culturally bound within western ontological paradigms, and thus may not be, in whole or in part, appropriate for the diverse needs of other cultures (Thakker & Ward, 1998).
It is possible, and imperative, that indigenous psychologies find meaningful points of integration with western psychologies, and may include the systematic operationalization of mental illness within rigorous diagnostic criteria (Lawson, Graham, & Baker, 2007). However, integration towards a global psychology, or other overarching cross-cultural framework of psychological phenomena transcendent of specific cultural ontologies may require the inclusion of paradigms and methodologies that exist apart from traditional western-scientific understandings of rigor. Moreover, diagnostic criteria will remain an important point of conversation and controversy for global psychology, as it jeopardizes the basic ability of researchers to generalize and categorize the prevalence/incidence of mental illness in a global context (Poznyak, Reed, & Clark, 2011).
Read more about this topic: Indigenous Psychology
Famous quotes containing the words western and/or hegemony:
“It appeared that he had once represented his tribe at Augusta, and also once at Washington, where he had met some Western chiefs. He had been consulted at Augusta, and gave advice, which he said was followed, respecting the eastern boundary of Maine, as determined by highlands and streams, at the time of the difficulties on that side. He was employed with the surveyors on the line. Also he called on Daniel Webster in Boston, at the time of his Bunker Hill oration.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The author’s hegemony must be broken. It is impossible to go too far in fanatical self-denial or fanatical self-renunciation: I am not I, but rather the street, the streetlights, this or that occurrence, nothing more. That’s what I call the style of stone.”
—Alfred Döblin (1878–1957)