Cultural Competence and Building Resilient Cultures

This course explores how culture, power, identity, and social context shape mental health experiences, well-being, and professional care across clinical, community, and global settings. Students examine how dominant cultural frameworks—Western, biomedical, individualist, and colonial perspectives—have influenced mental health practices, ethics, and professional standards. Emphasis is placed on cultural humility as an approach that prioritizes self-reflection, accountability, and awareness of power dynamics rather than striving for cultural mastery or technical competence.

Students explore different ways mental health and well-being are understood, including Indigenous healing systems, community-based care practices, and global approaches to distress and resilience. Using an intersectional lens, students analyze how overlapping identities such as race, gender, disability, socioeconomic status, sexuality, and migration influence mental health risks, access to care, and resilience. Drawing on research from psychology, social work, public health, and politicized somatics, students critically evaluate ethical responsibilities and intervention frameworks.

Through applied labs, reflective discussions, and a capstone project, students develop context-sensitive, culturally informed mental health interventions. By the end of the course, students are equipped to design mental health practices that are responsive to power, context, and lived experience and applicable in both national and global settings.