In this ted talk, Dr. Jessica Dere outlines some of the issues and benefits that are involved with socio-culturally informed therapy and tactfully reveals the unconscious biases that are present with most people, including therapists and can get in the way of properly administering therapy. https://youtu.be/VrYmQDiunSc

Question: In which groups are bulimia nervosa most prevalent?

A. African American women B. Hispanic Women C. Caucasian Women D. Hispanic and African American Women

Answer: D

Question: What has been the most memorable or powerful ad campaign or public message that you have seen that was made for the purpose of de-stigmatizing mental illness?

Answer: Many answers would work. Answers would include the world record egg on instagram, the NBA mental health advertisement and Make It Ok.

The American Psychological Association has published a variety of graphs and charts that shed light on some very alarming statistics regarding the prevalence of mental illness and the lack of of people seeking treatment. Most notably is that only around fifty percent of Caucasians seeks treatment for mental illness and African Americans seek treatment far less, closer to thirty percent. https://www.apa.org/monitor/2016/01/publication-disparities

This ted talk by Dr. Jeffrey Lieberman highlights some of the benefits that mental health de-stigmatization will bring. https://youtu.be/WrbTbB9tTtA

This doesn't count as an an annotation but smh I was literally gonna link this and I discovered it's already on here lol

While clinicians know that they need to be more socio-culturally attuned in their practice, not all of them realize exactly how to achieve this. In order to be socio-culturally attuned, the clinician must follow these steps. "Attune to Context and Power, Value What is Minimized, Intervene in Power Dynamics, Envision Just Alternatives, and Transform to Make the Imagined a Reality." (McDowell, T., Knudson-Martin, C., & Bermudez, J. M.)

Another way of de-stigmatizing mental illness is by offering training for people so that they can react to mental illnesses and also educate their peers about the reality of it. WSU is doing this through their mental health training program, which can be found here. https://cougarhealth.wsu.edu/mental-health-promotion/mental-health-trainings/

Many resources are available for most university students, for example, WSU offers behavioral health services for an incredibly large number of different mental problems from anxiety and depression to phobias and insomnia. One might argue however that high school campuses don't offer enough treatment or do enough to de-stigmatize mental illnesses, especially in the wake of catastrophes like sandy hook among others.

Question: By the time a child is in high school, how many of his classmates will have had a mental health issue? A. 2% B. 5% C. 10% D. 20% Answer: D

Question: Assuming that you had a mental illness, what would be the most important barrier that would prevent you from being treated? How could that barrier be lessened enough so that it isn't a factor in your decision?

Answer: The answer can vary of course, but if their biggest barrier is fear of miscommunication, then the best answer would be having a copious amount of bilingual therapists. If their biggest barrier is the stigma, then the best answer would be educating better and making it so that people have no reason to be judgmental about someone who is treated for a mental illness. If their most important barrier is fear of legal issues, then the best answer would be not requiring documentation and advertising the fact that they don't.

Minorities, and in particular the Latino community, seek therapy less often than Caucasians in the United States, and there are a few reasons for this, including fear of legal issues, a stigma around the concept of psychotherapy, and importantly, a fear of their struggles being miscommunication. A 2012 study of the Latino American population in the Midwest helped to affirm that there are a couple things that can be done to improve this. One is to have more bilingual therapists, which would help lessen fears of miscommunication. The other is to educate people about mental health problems in order to lessen the stigma surrounding them. (Rastogi, M., Massey-Hastings, N., & Wieling, E. 2012)

Additionally, many psychology professionals are currently working on new ways of educating and informing clinicians about how they can be more socio-culturally attuned. A prime example of this is a study conducted by a group of therapists in 2014, in which therapy sessions were rigorously examined, and following the sessions, the researchers discussed how well socio-cultural attunement was implemented. (Perron, N. J., Perneger, T., Kolly, V., Dao, M. D., Sommer, J., & Hudelson, P. 2009)

Researchers have identified a few ways of rating clinicians on their socio-cultural attunement. One of which is using a computer based simulation to find out how well they can identify important socio-cultural factors in a simulated therapy session. A study published in the Journal of Evaluation in Clinical Practice concluded that computer based rating scores correlated positively with people's opinions about how well they were socio-culturally attuned, meaning that the simulation is an effective way of evaluating them. (Pandit, M. L., Chen-Feng, J., Kang, Y. J., Knudson-Martin, C., & Huenergardt, D. 2014)