miss more symptoms of bipolar disorder and depression in African American adults and more cases of ADHD in African American children.
Dr. Norissa Williams, a clinical assistant professor for Counseling@NYU, which offers an online master’s in mental health counseling from NYU Steinhardt, believes mental health is studded with “cultural pain points” that can lead to missed or mistaken diagnoses.
For instance, Williams, who is African American, says many African American women strongly identify as caretakers. This identification can make them reluctant to admit to any mental distress of their own.
Racial and cultural differences also may surface in the ways patients relay their symptoms. Some Africans Americans may mention body aches and pain when describing their depression. Similarly, some Asian Americans tend to label their symptoms with physical traits like “dizziness” instead of emotional terms.
Those nuances often can go unnoticed by white doctors and therapists, says Williams, co-author of an upcoming paper in “Best Practices in Mental Health” about how cultural bias and stigma shortchange African Americans with psychiatric conditions.
“The problem with misdiagnoses and underdiagnoses is that