Working with the cultural formulation in therapy

The Cultural Formulation of Diagnosis, put away in the Appendix IX in the DSM-IV, was developed during the preparation of the DSMIV by the NIMH group Culture and Diagnosis, a group of international cultural experts to make the manual more culturally sensitive. The Cultural Formulation supplements the nomothetic or standardized diagnostic ratings of the DSM with an ideographic statement, emphasizing the patient's personal experience and the corresponding cultural reference group(s). In the Netherlands the Cultural Formulation proved to be a very useful and innovative instrument to make the diagnostic process and treatment more culturally sensitive. Aim of this article is to give more publicity to this model also in the rest of Europe.