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oai:mountainscholar.org:10217/680912025-12-30T03:27:00Zcom_10217_100532com_10217_100000com_10217_100326com_10217_100303col_10217_100538col_10217_100327

Batchelder, Greg, author Snodgrass, Jeffrey, advisor Kwiatkowski, Lynn, committee member Dik, Bryan, committee member 2007-01-03T08:11:01Z 2007-01-03T08:11:01Z 2012 Batchelder_colostate_0053N_11237.pdf ETDF2012500204ANPO http://hdl.handle.net/10217/68091 https://doi.org/10.25675/3.018638 In this thesis I propose that participants of a peer-support group for depression and bipolar disorder cognitively "model" their conditions in culture-particular ways. Specifically, I suggest that these patients embrace a particular clinical storytelling process that helps them to regulate their daily personal habits and bodily states, while seeing as ineffective and even potentially detrimental the drug regimens more commonly favored in U.S. psychiatry. I argue that patients' fixing of control and responsibility for cure are on the clinical encounter and on their own practice is cultural: involving shared in socially transmitted understandings of how mental health and healing work, a particular reaction to a biomedicine more dominant in U.S. society. Further, I show that being "consonant" or in sync with the shared cultural model I call "managing the disorder" correlates with improved symptomology. I suggest that this improvement may be the result of social support and reduced stress due to the feelings of belonging to the group- a process referred to in the literature as "cultural consonance"- as well as the actual strategies which participants employed in addition to, or in some cases, instead of, their medications. Marijuana use and religion/spirituality were also sometimes mentioned as factors which contributed to helping patients manage their disorders. For this project, these themes were explored in the academic literature, through participation in the peer-support group, in semi structured interviews, and quantitatively through survey data. I suggest that studies of this type may contribute to understanding and evaluating treatment models among various cultural groups. born digital masters theses English eng Colorado State University. Libraries 2000-2019 Copyright and other restrictions may apply. User is responsible for compliance with all applicable laws. For information about copyright law, please see https://libguides.colostate.edu/copyright. bipolar disorder cultural consonance cultural models ethnography peer support groups psychological anthropology Peer support trumps drug cocktails: cultural views of treatment options for persons with bipolar and depressive disorders Text Master of Arts (M.A.) Masters Anthropology Colorado State University This Item is protected by copyright and/or related rights (https://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/). You are free to use this Item in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s). open.access