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Pathologies of the West
Psychiatry conventionally regards spirit possession and dramatic healing rituals in non-European societies as forms of abnormality if not mental illness. Roland Littlewood, a psychiatrist and social anthropologist, argues that this has occurred as Western psychiatry obscured the political origin of its own disturbing cultural patterns -- hysteria, parasuicide, agoraphobia, eating disorders, shoplifting, male sexual violence, the response to traumatic stress, and multiple personality disorder. He proposes that the medical emphasis on individual and biological differences in such "psychopathologies" is less a sort of bad science than it is fundamental to their very success as patterns of indiv...
Aliens and Alienists
In this classic text the authors examine the links between racism, psychological ill health and inadequate treatment of ethnic minorities. Through a series of case studies they discuss: * the psychological legacy of colonialism and slavery * the racist bias in psychiatric and psychological theory * diagnostic bias * the role of religion in mental health or illness * the value of anthropological and pschoanalytic insights. The concluding chapter in this edition reviews the development of 'transcultural psychiatry' and summarises changes in administration of the Mental Health Act.
Pathology and Identity
The Earth People of Trinidad draw on Yoruba sources to assert the particular power of female creativity. This first new Caribbean religion since Rastafari is led by a woman, Mother Earth, whose ideas emerged from her experience of a cerebral disease. The author, Roland Littlewood, who is both a psychiatrist and a social anthropologist, offers a nonreductionist view on the relationship between pathology and creativity, between the natural and the human sciences.
Intercultural Therapy
There are many problems in working psychotherapeutically across cultures, with numerous examples of failure to understand cultural issues. For example, the ignorance of traditional family structures can lead to major diagnostic and therapeutic errors. These errors include potentially disastrous transference relationship interpretations, the confounding of traditional beliefs with psychiatric symptoms, and a lack of awareness of differences in presenting symptomology. This book explains the theories and techniques of intercultural therapy. The second edition retains many of the ideas and practices developed in the first edition, but has been updated throughout to include the latest literature...
On Knowing and Not Knowing in the Anthropology of Medicine
Social scientific studies of medicine typically assume that systems of medical knowledge are uniform and consistent. But while anthropologists have long rejected the notion that cultures are discrete, bounded, and rule-drive entities, medical anthropology has been slower to develop alternative approaches to understanding cultures of health. This provocative volume considers the theoretical, methodological, and ethnographic implications of the fact that medical knowledge is frequently dynamic, incoherent, and contradictory, and that and our understanding of it is necessarily incomplete and partial. In diverse settings from indigenous cultures to Western medical industries, contributors consid...
Impotent Warriors
From September 1990 to June 1991, the UK deployed 53,462 military personnel in the Gulf War. After the end of the conflict anecdotal reports of various disorders affecting troops who fought in the Gulf began to surface. This mysterious illness was given the name “Gulf War Syndrome” (GWS). This book is an investigation into this recently emergent illness, particularly relevant given ongoing UK deployments to Iraq, describing how the illness became a potent symbol for a plethora of issues, anxieties, and concerns. At present, the debate about GWS is polarized along two lines: there are those who think it is a unique, organic condition caused by Gulf War toxins and those who argue that it is probably a psychological condition that can be seen as part of a larger group of illnesses. Using the methods and perspective of anthropology, with its focus on nuances and subtleties, the author provides a new approach to understanding GWS, one that makes sense of the cultural circumstances, specific and general, which gave rise to the illness.
The Butterfly and the Serpent
Presents a collection of papers by an author established as a contributor to the field of cultural psychiatry. Dealing with essential issues in the area, the papers range across culture, history, language, religion, and gender and present material from around the world. The text examines the realization that Anglo-Saxon approach to psychiatry doesn't necessarily work when used with non-white groups.
Intercultural Therapy
Intercultural Therapy: Challenges, Insights and Developments examines the impact of the work of the Nafsiyat Intercultural Therapy Centre in North London, which focused on providing free, psychodynamic therapy. Set up by Jafar Kareem, the centre was the first psychotherapy service with the specific task of offering psychodynamic psychotherapy to Britain’s Black and ethnic minority population. The editors of this book have invited a number of Nafsiyat therapists and colleagues to give their view on what has changed, or not changed, in regard to the integration of intercultural issues into mainstream therapy. Intercultural Therapy will be of interest to all psychotherapists working in multicultural practices, as well as practitioners and social workers.
Sadness, Depression, and the Dark Night of the Soul
Revealing a tension between the medical model of depression and the very different language of theology, this book explores how religious people and communities understand severe sadness, their coping mechanisms and their help-seeking behaviours. Drawing from her study of practicing Catholics, contemplative monks and nuns, priests and laypeople studying theology, the author describes how symptoms that might otherwise be described as pathological and meet diagnostic criteria for a depressive disorder are considered by some religious individuals to be normal and valued experiences. She explains how sadness fits into the 'Dark Night of the Soul' narrative - an active transformation of emotional distress into an essential ingredient for self-reflection and spiritual growth - and how sadness with a recognised cause is seen to 'make sense', whereas sadness without a cause may be seen to warrant psychiatric consultation. The author also discusses the role of the clergy in cases of sadness and depression and their collaboration with medical professionals. This is an insightful read for anyone with an interest in theology or mental health, including clergy, psychiatrists and psychologists.
Colonialism and Psychiatry
This book brings together academics and clinicians from different parts of the world with different experiences of colonialism to share their experiences and analyse the impact of colonialism on mental health.
