Mental Health, Race and Culture

Description

This powerful text offers a unique analysis of the impact of race and culture on contemporary issues in mental health. Drawing on extensive international experience, Fernando challenges the traditional ideas that inform practice in clinical psychology and psychiatry in order to promote new and alternative ways of thinking.

Covering both theoretical perspectives and practical implications, this insightful text discusses perceptions of ethnicity and identity, compares practices around the world and looks at racism in mental health services. Topics new to the third edition include:

• Trauma and psychosocial support
• The new discourses in mental health of recovery, spirituality and well-being
• The mental health of refugees
• Specific developments in low-income countries, including Asia and Africa

This fully revised, expanded and updated edition of a seminal text offers students and practitioners alike a comprehensive and reliable study of both western and non-western psychiatry and mental health practices.

Comment on second edition:

'Thorough, challenging and essential for today's society& multi-cultural professional interventions in mental health'- Ms Sarah Patrick, School of Health and Community Care, Leeds Metropolitan University, UK

Contents

Introduction

PART 1: THEORY AND TRADITION
Race and Culture; Ethnicity and Identity
Traditional Approaches to Mental Health
Background and Culture of Psychiatry
Racism in Psychiatry
Changing Discourse in Mental Health
Trauma and Post-traumatic Stress; Suffering and Violence

PART II: PRACTICE AND INNOVATION
Application of Psychiatry: Bias and Imperialism
Asian and African 'Therapy' for Mental Health
Mental Health in Low and Middle Income Countries
Mental Health of Refugees in High Income Countries
Prospects for Plurality in Therapies for Mental Health
Mental Health for All

SUMAN FERNANDO is Visiting Professor in the Department of Applied Social Sciences at London Metropolitan University, UK, and Senior Lecturer at the European Centre for Migration and Social Care (MASC), University of Kent, UK. He was a consultant psychiatrist for over twenty years in the National Health Service and is involved in non-governmental organisations in the UK and abroad. He has written and lectured widely on mental health development.