The experience and treatment of mental distress is profoundly shaped by cultural context — the meanings attached to suffering, the resources available, the stigma encountered, and the pathways deemed legitimate for seeking help. In most of the world, mental health care is inaccessible not primarily because of cost but because its frameworks do not resonate with local understandings of distress and healing. Building genuinely universal mental health support requires both humility about the cultural specificity of existing models and deep engagement with the frameworks that actually make sense within each community.
Patan