Migration, culture, and psychosis (60 minute paper)

Meta analyses of studies have shown that migration has an undeniably strong influence on the incidence and the prevalence of psychosis, the odds for being diagnosed with psychosis or schizophrenia among certain groups or... [ view full abstract ]

Meta analyses of studies have shown that migration has an undeniably strong influence on the incidence and the prevalence of psychosis, the odds for being diagnosed with psychosis or schizophrenia among certain groups or ethnicities being up to ten times as large as for people without a background of migration. Furthermore, and as recognized in different versions of the diagnostic classification system DSM,  the diagnosis of psychosis is clearly dependent upon what is to be considered as normal within different cultures and subcultures. How to understand this? This question becomes more and more important for mental health in this age of mass migrations. E.g. in the Netherlands, large cities like Amsterdam and Rotterdam host people from over 170 nations, the bulk of them having arrived in the last half century; in these cities, the young from different cultures and with a background of migration form more and more a majority of the population. Figures that are far from exceptional in Western Europe.

The working of body and mind, of the community and of society, combine and create an extra vulnerability for psychosis, a vulnerability we must try to understand in order to effectuate public mental health and optimal diagnosis and therapy. Recent developments in fields like cultural neuroscience and developmental biopsychology underlie changes in psychiatric thinking that are already in place in the latest and fifth version of the DSM and in the DSM-5 Cultural Formulation Interview.

Among different aspects of the relationships between migration, culture, and psychosis, this symposium aims to present a framework called envelopment as a way of understanding the effects of migration on psychosis, a framework that accounts for the influence of social exclusion and of different kinds of adversity and stress and may lead to important clinical implications, e.g. in considering Resource Group Community Treatment.