The comparative global history of mental health care in the twentieth century remains relatively uncharted territory. Psychiatric Cultures Compared offers an overview of various national psychiatric cultures, comparing, for example, advances in Dutch psychiatry with developments abroad. Wide-ranging essays cover analyses of the field of psychiatric nursing, the changing use of psychotropic medicine, the emergence of in- and outpatient mental health sectors, the rise of the anti-psychiatry movement, and a critical look at modern day deinstitutionalization.

In the past, our ideas on psychiatric hospitals and their history have been shaped by objects like straitjackets, cribs, and binding belts. By focusing on material cultures, this book offers a new perspective on the history of psychiatry as a complex entanglement where power is permanently negotiated.

Intellectual disability is a lifelong condition involving deficits in both intellectual and adaptive functioning. Individuals with intellectual disability experience a greater burden of co-occurring physical and mental illness compared to the general population, and often need a significant degree of support from healthcare professionals and carers, as well as family and friends. Additionally, their lives can be greatly influenced both positively and negatively by the cultures in which they exist, including societal attitudes, belief systems and norms. An insightful addition to the Oxford Cultural Psychiatry series, Psychiatry of Intellectual Disability across Cultures explores the health, support structures, and societal attitudes towards people with intellectual disabilities throughout the world. Written by international experts of intellectual disability and mental health, this comprehensive textbook covers broad topics such as anthropology, mental health, physical health, research, and sexuality. It also comprises chapters dedicated to specific geographic regions, such as Africa, America, Australasia, Europe, India, the Middle East, and the United Kingdom and Ireland.

Cultural psychiatry is primarily concerned with the transcultural aspects of mental health related to human behavior, psychopathology and treatment. At a clinical level, cultural psychiatry aims to promote culturally relevant mental health care for patients of diverse ethnic or cultural backgrounds. From the standpoint of research, cultural psychiatry is interested in studying how ethnic or cultural factors may influence human behavior and psychopathology as well as the art of healing. On a theoretical level, cultural psychiatry aims to expand the knowledge and theories about mental health-related human behavior and mental problems by widening the sources of information and findings transculturally, and providing cross-cultural validation. This work represents the first comprehensive attempt to pull together the clinical, research and theoretical findings in a single volume. Key Features * Written by a nationally and internationally well-known author and scholar * The material focuses not only on the United States but also on various cultural settings around the world so that the subject matter can be examined broadly from universal as well as cross-cultural perspectives * Proper combination of clinical practicalities and conceptual discussion * Serves as a major source for use in the training of psychiatric residents and mental health personnel as well as students of behavior science in the areas of culture and mental health * A total of 50 chapters with detailed cross-referencing * Nearly 2000 references plus an appendix of almost 400 books * 130 tables and figures

The textbook offers comprehensive understanding of the impact of cultural factors and differences on mental illness and its treatment.

Within the past two decades, there has been an increased interest in the study of culture and mental health relationships. This interest has extended across many academic and professional disciplines, including anthropology, psychology, sociology, psychiatry, public health and social work, and has resulted in many books and scientific papers emphasizing the role of sociocultural factors in the etiology, epidemiology, manifestation and treatment of mental disorders. It is now evident that sociocultural variables are inextricably linked to all aspects of both normal and abnormal human behavior. But, in spite of the massive accumulation of data regarding culture and mental health relationships, sociocultural factors have still not been incorporated into existing biological and psychological perspectives on mental disorder and therapy. Psychiatry, the Western medical specialty concerned with mental disorders, has for the most part continued to ignore socio-cultural factors in its theoretical and applied approaches to the problem. The major reason for this is psychiatry's continued commitment to a disease conception of mental disorder which assumes that mental disorders are largely biologically-caused illnesses which are universally represented in etiology and manifestation. Within this perspective, mental disorders are regarded as caused by universal processes which lead to discrete and recognizable symptoms regardless of the culture in which they occur. However, this perspective is now the subject of growing criticism and debate.