Mental Health Issues and Practice in Netherlands
(SASS 375b/575) | 3 credits
Spring Break
March 10-14, 2025
Explore Amsterdam while discovering the similarities and differences between how Americans and the Dutch view mental health and substance use disorders and, more importantly, how we treat the people we serve. Gain insight into Dutch tolerance, harm reduction and cultural attitudes toward co-occuring mental health and substance abuse treatment.
Spend the week visiting treatment clinics, residential treatment centers, hospitals, user rooms and prisons that provide interaction with Dutch clinicians, managers and people receiving services. Learn from government officials, practicing social workers, health care providers and some of Holland’s most prominent scholars. Students with an interest in mental health and substance abuse issues are encouraged to enroll in this course.
Being a biomedical engineer, I do not have many chances to take courses that deal with mental health and social policy. Although the profession might incorporate elements of mental health and health policy, biomedical engineering tends to seek to quantify the user. This trip challenged me to consider the people behind the problems and their emotional needs.
—David Jasen WuWong,biomedical engineering undergraduate student, Netherlands 2017