This book outlines a "new ethnopsychiatry," one that considers popular or folk ethnomedicines and professional psychiatric systems in the same discourse, effacing the traditional distinction between psychiatry and ethnopsychiatry. The essays in this volume are from a diverse, interdisciplinary group representing history, psychology, sociology, and medicine, as well as anthropology. The author view both ethnomedical practices and illness as local cultural constructions. They consider ideologies and institutions from both professional and popular ethnopsychiatric systems in America, Western Europe, South Africa, the Caribbean, Japan, and India. The book demonstrates that professional and popular psychiatric medicines lie along the same local cultural continua, that professional, "scientific" psychiatries and less formalized systems of local popular psychology are epistemological relatives, aspects of common cultural discourses on normality and abnormality. The essays reject the notion of a universal, uniform reality of psychopathology beyond cultural boundaries, but the data strongly support the cultural and historically constructed nature of ethnopsychiatry, in its illness, ideologies, and institutions. Contributors to this volume include Amy V. Blue, Thomas Csordas, Ellen Dwyer, Paul E. Farmer, M.D., Atwood D. Gaines, Helena Jia Hershel, Janis Jenkins, Pearl Katz, Thomas Maretzki, Naoki Nomura, Charles Nuckolls, Kathryn Oths, Lorna Amarasingham Rhodes, and Leslie Swartz.

What is the relationship between culture and mental health? Is mental illness universal? Are symptoms of mental disorders different across social groups? In the late 1960s these questions gave rise to a groundbreaking series of articles written by the psychiatrist Henri Ellenberger, who would go on to publish The Discovery of the Unconscious: The History and Evolution of Dynamic Psychiatry in 1970. Fifty years later they are presented for the first time in English translation, introduced by historian of science Emmanuel Delille. Ethnopsychiatry explores one of the most controversial subjects in psychiatric research: the role of culture in mental health. In his articles Ellenberger addressed the complex clinical and theoretical problems of cultural specificity in mental illness, collective psychoses, differentiations within cultural groups, and biocultural interactions. He was especially attuned to the correlations between rapid cultural transformations in postwar society, urbanization, and the frequency of mental illness. Ellenberger drew from a vast and varied primary and secondary literature in several languages, as well as from his own findings in clinical practice, which included work with indigenous peoples. In analyzing Ellenberger's contributions Delille unveils the transnational and interdisciplinary origins of transcultural psychiatry, which grew out of knowledge networks that crisscrossed the globe. The book has a rich selection of appendices, including Ellenberger's lecture notes on a case of peyote addiction and his correspondence with anthropologist and psychoanalyst Georges Devereux. These original essays, and their masterful contextualization, provide a compelling introduction to the foundations of transcultural psychiatry and one of its most distinguished and prolific researchers.

Cultural Sociology of Mental Illness: An A to Z Guide looks at recent reports that suggest an astonishing rise in mental illness and considers such questions as: Are there truly more mentally ill people now or are there just more people being diagnosed and treated? What are the roles of economics and the pharmacological industry in this controversy? At the core of what is going on with mental illness in America and around the world, the editors suggest, is cultural sociology: How differing cultures treat mental illness and, in turn, how mental health patients are affected by the culture. In this illuminating multidisciplinary reference, expert scholars explore the culture of mental illness from the non-clinical perspectives of sociology, history, psychology, epidemiology, economics, public health policy, and finally, the mental health patients themselves. Key themes include Cultural Comparisons of Mental Health Disorders; Cultural Sociology of Mental Illness Around the World; Economics; Epidemiology; Mental Health Practitioners; Non-Drug Treatments; Patient, the Psychiatry, and Psychology; Psychiatry and Space; Psychopharmacology; Public Policy; Social History; and Sociology. Key Features: This two-volume A-Z work, available in both print and electronic formats, includes close to 400 articles by renowned experts in their respective fields. An Introduction, a thematic Reader’s Guide, a Glossary, and a Resource Guide to Key Books, Journals, and Associations and their web sites enhance this invaluable reference. A chronology places the cultural sociology of mental illness in historical context. 150 photos bring concepts to life. The range and scope of this Encyclopedia is vivid testimony to the intellectual vitality of the field and will make a useful contribution to the next generation of sociological research on the cultural sociology of mental illness. Key Themes: Cultural Comparisons of Mental Health Disorders Cultural Sociology of Mental Illness Around the World Economics Epidemiology Mental Health Practitioners Non-Drug Treatments Patient, The Psychiatry and Psychology Psychiatry and Space Psychopharmacology Public Policy Social History Sociology