In Japan, admission to a psychiatric facility for people with schizophrenia is usually for life. We developed a rehabilitation program aimed at discharging these patients into the Tokyo community. This paper describes the results for the 224 patients. Using an inpatient ward at the Tokyo Musashino Hospital, patients were enrolled in the program and subsequently discharged into the community with an assigned worker. The results indicate for the majority (79%) re-integration into the community was successful. The success of this program in a metropolitan city like Tokyo argues for the efficacy of such programs.
Data obtained from 130 questionnaires distributed to immigrant Japanese housewives were analyzed to determine if family factors were associated with poor adjustment, and in particular with depressive symptoms. It was possible to identify women who had no major adjustment problems in adapting to life in Canada (n = 70), transitional adjustment problems (n = 30), late onset adjustment problems (n = 7) and chronic adjustment problems (n = 23). These categories were determined by self-report and validated by symptom identification. Style of marriage, communication with spouse and mother-child interactions were hypothesized to be related to adjustment problems. A 16 item questionnaire was developed to assess the degree to which these factors affected adjustment. The only factor which affected degree of adjustment was communication with the spouse. These results are discussed within the context of traditional hypotheses concerning adaptation to a new culture and the implication for treatment.
The reasons why I became a transcultural psychiatrist in a country considered to be culturally homogeneous are presented. Efforts to nurture cultural psychiatry in Japan through the activities of the Japanese Society of Transcultural Psychiatry are described. Experiences in Vancouver, Canada in the 1980s formed the basis of my cultural psychiatric research. Research on the mental health of Japanese community in Vancouver and on ethnic minorities in Japan is discussed. Specific examples are included to explain how unique Japanese cultural traits can affect diagnosis and treatment. The future of Japanese cultural psychiatry in a global context is considered.
Although Japan is becoming a multicultural society, the policy for ethnic minorities is not as mature as that in Western countries. Mental health issues among new ethnic minorities will be discussed. New minorities are mainly South‐East Asian refugees, foreign brides from the Philippines, Korea and China, and returnees from China. Because their communities are very small, they tend to have great difficulties in coping with the Japanese society. Problems in their adjustment to the host country will be discussed.
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