ABSTRACT
By discussing the role of gender, race, and class in psychopathology, this chapter focuses on the di erences rather than the universalities. It addresses these questions: (a) Do gender, race, and class a ect which psychological disorders individuals experience or how they experience them? (b) Are individuals from di erent groups treated di erently by the mental health system? (c) Do recommended treatments work equally well for individuals from these di erent groups? (d) Should treatments take the demographic characteristics of the client into account? (e) Do the gender or race of the therapist matter? (f) What di erence do gender, race, and class make? (g) And, if they make a di erence, why? In the end we will discover that these questions raise more questions. Clear-cut answers are scarce, but the questions themselves shed light on the process of psychological diagnosis and treatment of psychological disorders.
