Racism and Mental Health: Psychiatric Diagnosis - Research Paper Example

Since the 1980s, psychiatric patients who belong to minority groups have been at risk for psychiatric misdiagnosis, as compared to other white patients. Although the reliability of research diagnoses accompanied with diagnostic instruments has been performed at a satisfactory rate, this does not appear to be the case in daily practice in all hospitals around the world (Oosterhuis et al. 2006). In fact, according to Caplan & Cosgrove (2004), the misdiagnosis of black patients have been known to be quite common.

‘Race’ has been defined as the construct of human variability with the basis on one’s perceived differences in biological structure, physical appearance and his/her behaviour (Kaye & Lingiah, 2000) However, the term ‘ethnic group’ is usually used in order to describe a category of people, since the concept of ‘race’ is based on the false premise that there exist natural distinctions that are caused by biological and behavioral differences. In actual fact, however, both biological and behavioral differences are common to diverse continental origins (American Psychological Association, 2001).

Diseases among patients cause symptoms the patients themselves have to describe to the physician. However, it is much easier to diagnose a physical symptom than it is to diagnose manifestations that are experienced psychologically and are exhibited through behaviors. The term ‘psychological dysfunction’ is one that veers away from the normal psychological functioning of an individual. Thanks to advances in science, there has been hoped that such ‘psychological dysfunctions’ can be easily linked to abnormalities experienced by an individual’s biological functions.