Psychiatry Research EG

Several culturally specific practical considerations should inform social work interventions with ethnic Arab peoples in Arab countries or in Western nations. These include taking into account gender relations, individuals places in their families and communities, patterns of mental health services use, and, for practice in Western nations, the clients level of acculturation. Such aspects provide the basis for specific guidelines in working with ethnic Arab mental health clients. These include an emphasis on shortterm, directive treatment communication patterns that are passive and informal patients understanding of external loci of control and their use of ethnospecific idioms of distress and, where appropriate, the integration of modern and traditional healing systems.