Culture of Mental Illness and Psychiatric Practice in Africa

Emmanuel Akyeampong is Professor of History and of African and African American Studies at Harvard University.Allan Hill is Andelot Professor of Demography at the Harvard School of Public Health.Arthur Kleinman is the Esther and Sidney Rabb Professor of Anthropology, Harvard University, and Professor of Medical Anthropology in Global Health and Social Medicine and Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School.

• Introduction: Culture, Mental Illness and Psychiatric Practice in AfricaEmmanuel Akyeampong, Allan Hill and Arthur Kleinman1. Historical Overview of Psychiatry in AfricaEmmanuel Akyeampong2. Common Mental Disorders in Sub-Saharan Africa: The Triad of Depression, Anxiety, and SomatizationVikram Patel and Dan Stein3. Schizophrenia and Psychosis in West AfricaUrsula M. Read, Victor Doku, and Ama de-Graft Aikins 4. Mental Illness and Destitution in Ghana: A Social Psychological Perspective Ama de-Graft Aikins 5. Children and Adolescent Mental Health in South AfricaAlan Flisher, Andrew Dawes, Zuhayr Kafaar, Crick Lund, Katherine Sorsdahl, Bronwyn Myers, Rita Thom, and Soraya Seedat 6. Some Aspects of Mental Illness in French-Speaking West AfricaRené Collignon 7. Local Interpretations of Global Constructs: Women's Reports on Mental Illness in AfricaAllan G. Hill and Victoria Demenil8. One Thing Leads to Another: Sex, AIDS, and Mental Health Reform in South AfricaPamela Y. Collins9. Health Care Professional Mental Health and Well-Being in the Era of HIV/AIDS: Perspectives from Sub-Saharan AfricaGiuseppe Raviola10. The Role of The Traditional Healers in Mental Health in Africa ElialiliaOkello and SegganeMusisi 11. Improving Access to Psychiatric Medicines in AfricaShoba Raja, Sarah Kippen and Michael Reich12. Child Solders and Community Reconciliation in Post-War Sierra Leone: African Psychiatry in the 21st CenturyWilliam Murphy13. Using Mixed Methods to Plan and Evaluate Mental Health Programs for War-Affected Children in Sub-Saharan AfricaTheresa BetancourtContributorsIndex

This book is recommended reading for any professional who desires to understand the ways in which politics, economics, institutions, and culture converge in the provision of mental health care, especially in low-income contexts.(Journal of Menal Health) The Culture of Mental Illness and Psychiatric Practice in Africa . . . addresses a much neglected field of study and does so in a broad and interdisciplinary fashion.(African Studies Review) Anthropologists . . . will find The Culture of Mental Illness and Psychiatric Practice in Africa to be a consistent case for the integration of psychological, medical, and sociocultural perspectives. With a topic as vast as African mental health, even a sizable book like this one feels as if it is only scraping the surface of the subject, but it shows the promise of anthropological concepts and ethnological methods in the study and treatment of mental illness, not only in Africa but around the world.(Anthropology Review Database) In The Culture of Mental Illness and Psychiatric Practice, [the authors] . . . shed light on mental illness in Africa and the way interventions are handled by psychiatric institutions and experts, including physicians and nurses. . . All the volume's chapters, which study treatments used to deal with common and chronic mental disorders, have been well researched and well written.Fall 2015(Africa Today) A review of the literature on African psychology or psychiatry yields few results in relation to the long history and substantial size of this mighty continent and the richness of its cultures. Thus, the valuable array of contributions to the edited volume, The Culture of Mental Illness and Psychiatric Practice in Africa, cannot be understated.(PsycCRITIQUES)