A Case Study On African Americans

Mental illness is and has always been a serious topic. But it has not always been taken as serious in the black community. From my research, scholars and medical professionals in the field of mental health spoke on the fact that mental illness is a stigma in the black community and the conversation of this is not happening. There are many factors that contributed to this. Factors such as the distrust of medical professionals, mis-diagnosis, socio-economical factors and so much more contribute to the reason the black community is missed when it comes to mental health. I also discovered the inside factors that were culture, religion, mis-education, and family reliance. This also becomes why it is a stigma or why it’s not talked about amongst everyone in the community.

This article is a great article that relates to African Americans seeking mental health treatment at lower rates than whites. The article states that this disparity can be attributed to attitudes toward services, alternate coping, and differences in care. This article also illuminates biases in counseling.

A mental illness is one one of many different disorders or conditions that affect one's mood thinking and behavior. Approximately 1 in 5 U.S. adults reports suffering from some form of mental illness. ANd about 20% of us youth are affected by some type of mental illness in their life. African Americans are 20% more likely to report significant mental distress but less likely than white counterparts to seek mental health care. For black people mental illness is surrounded by a stigma of weakness and religious disconnect.

Health care for mental illness is an issue in the African American community for Men, Women and Adolescents due to the underserving and lack of mental healthcare providers, the cultural stigma of having mental illness and

Per Vaterlaus, Skogrand, & Chaney (2015) studies have shown that African Americans reaching out for mental health services are perceived to be powerless or weak, and are often humiliated and feel embarrassed. In a study performed by (Ward, Wiltshire, Detry & Brown (2013) African Americans were found to be hesitant to confess any mental health problems and were more likely to cope using religious practices. In my opinion, African Americans are connected to

The lack of mental health care services for minorities is a long-standing problem in the United States. The first time the issue received attention was in 1985, when the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services released a report that described serious health discrepancies that minority populations were enduring. In 1986, because of this report, the Office of Minority Health was formed to assist in the reduction of the health care shortages for

Everybody heard the saying: “stay out of grown folks business” but, what if you were finally grown enough to join the conversation. While getting into a deep conversation with an old friend about your goods and your bads. You are told by the expert that mental illness for Caucasian people is schizophrenia and mental illness for African American people is Bipolarism. This shocks you because you never heard of this before. Then everything starts to make sense why in particular some of us act, talk, think the way we do. Is the problems in the foods we eat? The drinks we drink? What we watch? Or is it society’s fault we chose to act the way we do? I would say Yes, because in history a man named Willie Lynch taught the way an African American man and woman are supposed to act in society as a piece of property for their owner. Not knowing we pick up some of these behaviors of Post Traumatic Slave syndrome. Are we sick and are we getting help for it? The answer is No, we are not getting help for our mental problems since we sometimes don’t know it exist. “Bipolar disorder affects approximately 5.7 million adult Americans, or about 2.6% of the U.S. population age 18 and older every year” (National Institute of Mental Health). Some of us need real help but don’t know who to go to for help. You might be feeling out of place, insane, irritable, euphoric, and talkative at the same time. When an individual has been diagnosed with Bipolar disorder they should follow the doctor’s orders

When experiencing a mental illness, African Americans face obstacles “related to understanding the problem or situation and limitation in awareness of possible solutions, strategies remedies and resources” (Hines-Martin, Malone, Kim, & Brown-Piper, 2003). In a study by Hines-Martin (2003), participants verbalized that they did not think they were “crazy” and therefore did not need mental health services. In this instance participants showed a lack of knowledge about what mental health illness looks like. They identified mental illness as dichotomous states (Hines-Martin et al., 2003). A study by Mental Health America found similar results. In this study, a majority of African Americans surveyed believed that depression was a “health problem” and in some cases “normal” (MHA, 2012). Talking about mental illness is taboo for African Americans, and as a result they possess little knowledge about specific mental health problems or available treatments (Alvidrez et al., 2008). For African Americans, stigma serves as an impediment to problem recognition. Because they have a misconstrued idea of what mental illness is, they are less likely to contemplate that they have such problems. Alvidrez (2008) found that stigma prevented 65% of their survey respondents from contemplating that they had such problems. Because many African Americans are uninformed about what mental illness is and how it

Conversations regarding mental health can often be a difficult topic to discuss openly. The Huffington Post provided readers with the opportunity to understand mental illness and intersectionality in the article, 4 Black Women Writers Get Honest About Mental Illness and Race. This article provides a different perspective on mental health as it looks at mental illness through the intersectionality of race and gender. In the article, four black women participate in an interview to discuss their experience with depression, bi-polar disorder, and ADHD and how it affects their lives as both black and woman identified beings. Discussions of mental health in the black community are rare as there is a negative view of mental illness. Hearing

For the expert-consensus diagnoses, clinicians looked at the structured interviews and medical records of the patients. Strakowski determined that there are minimal differences in first-rank symptoms between African-American and Caucasian patients when clinicians are blinded by ethnicity/race. There were 79 patients that met DSM-IV criteria for an affective disorder, 40 identifying themselves as Caucasian or White and 39 identifying themselves as African-American. The expert-consensus diagnoses revealed the presence of first-rank symptoms in 55% of the White patients and 62% of the African-American patients. However, despite these minimal differences, it was found that during the structural interviews, African-American patients were more likely to be diagnosed with a schizophrenia spectrum disorder than their white counterparts (Strakowski et al., 1996). Therefore, the overdiagnosis of schizophrenia cannot be attributed to the presence of these first-rank symptoms.

Skyland Trail is a nonprofit mental health organization founded in 1989 in Atlanta Georgia. Named one of the top mental treatment centers in the nation, Skyland Trail provides help for an arrangement of disorders ranging from schizophrenia to depression in adults. At least 82% of their clients have multiple co-occurring diagnosis (“History and Mission,” 2016). Unlike other treatment centers the facility focuses on holistic and evidence based treatment which is customized for each patient in the facility (“History and Mission,” 2016). The target population I would like to work with within Skyland Trail would be the minorities in the facility especially the African American clients. Working with the mentally ill during my undergrad it was alarming

When African American males who are vastly capable do not reach their academic potential there are not any quick or easy fixes to this social problem. Other than temporary or situational issues there are other factors that have communally taken a toll on the performance and education experience of African American adolescent males (Ford & Moore, 2013). On the mezzo level, he has a negative interaction with his school. His mother receives a lot of negative reports from the school. Not once did his teacher and any counselors make any referrals for professional services in any of his grades. A lot of teachers do not how to engage with him. Often teachers immediately assume because he is 6’9 he is already going to be trouble because

Environmental disasters are often pushed into regions with a higher rate of marginalized groups; relating to class, gender, and race. The dangerous environmental issues that these groups face hinder their process in the fight for equality, oppressing them and hurting the environment even more. Areas with a higher black population are forced into poverty for various reasons that

But for many communities, social support, networks, demographics of the area, and daily activity also determines spirituality and life satisfaction. The study by Park, J., Roh, S., & Yeo, Y. (2012) states that social factors; social support; and family had significant influence on religiosity and life satisfaction. Patricia Wilkerson also found out that in the African American community, other social conditions and economic situations also affect life satisfaction. Health conditions limit activities which might in turn affect happiness and spirituality. Other factors included family structure (widowed, living alone etc.) and income (fixed income) (Wilkerson, u.d.).

Even individuals who overcome the barriers to seeking help are at risk for the assessment and diagnosis process to fail at meeting their particular needs (United States, 1999). One example of this lack of cultural competence is the issue of under diagnosis and misdiagnosis of depression in African Americans, specifically in African American women. Depression