Saeed Farooq
Cross cultural psychiatry is a burgeoning field. Almost universally cross cultural psychiatry has become synonymous for working with ethnic minorities living in developed countries. We tend to think that only white psychiatrists have cross cultural issues when working with ethnic minorities. It is rarely considered that as a psychiatrist from a different ethnic background, we also need to understand the ‘culture’ of the host nation. As an English speaking mental health professional, it is thought that we have adequate knowledge of the ‘English’ culture, gained perhaps from English medium system of education quite prevalent in subcontinent or Hollywood movies.
