Cultivating pluralism in health psychology

Historically health, illness and healing operated through a single medium, or idiom, within relatively culturally encapsulated societies. Our increasingly porous societies now present us with a plethora of cultural explanations for our states of 'being'. Health 'seekers' can now turn to a variety of health 'providers'. The complexities of this situation are illustrated by reviewing research from Africa on cognitive tolerance. In many western societies the clinician is also faced with the challenge of having to work with a plurality of complex ideas about health and illness, which he or she may be unfamiliar with. The Problem Portrait Technique (PPT) is presented as a means of assisting practitioners (and researchers) to assess the interplay of culture and health. It is argued that health psychology should cultivate pluralism both by acknowledging the influence of culture on health and by embracing the diversity of methodological and conceptual perspectives within itself.