Asian women's mental distress : its relationship to culture, beliefs & engagement with services

• Main Author: Shah, Meera
• Published: University of Birmingham 2005
• Subjects: 362.19689082
• Online Access: http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.423515

This thesis is submitted in partial fulfilment of the regulations for the degree of Doctor of Clinical Psychology (Clin. Psy. D. ) at the School of Psychology, University of Birmingham. It comprises both research and written examples of applied clinical work carried out during the course of training. Volume I contains the research component of the degree, which consists of two related papers (prepared for submission to appropriate journals). The first paper reviews the literature in relation to possible explanations for why Asian women may be particularly vulnerable to mental distress, as it is well recognised that this group are at high risk of both attempted and completed suicide in the UK. This paper has been prepared for submission to Transcultural Psychiatry (see Appendix 8 for Notes for Contributors). The second paper is an empirical study that compares causal beliefs about mental distress between Asian and British white women and explores the relationship between beliefs, acculturation, engagement with therapy services and mental health gains. This paper has been prepared for submission to the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies (see Appendix 8 for Notes for contributors). Finally, the public domain briefing paper (see Appendix 1) provides an overview of the empirical paper and was used to disseminate the main findings. Volume II of this thesis contains the clinical component of the degree and consists of five clinical practice reports which were completed during placements within different specialties. The first report formulates the case of a 14 year old girl following bereavement experiences from cognitive and systemic perspectives. The second report is a service evaluation of an anxiety management group for adults. The third report is a case study of a 71 year old woman with a history of psychotic depression, detailing the formulation (using a psychodynamic perspective), intervention based on life review therapy and outcome. The fourth report adopts a single case experimental design to evaluate the effectiveness of an individual anger management programme with a woman with mild learning disabilities. The final report is an abstract summarising an orally presented case study of a man with anxiety and depression following testicular cancer.