Sociocultural Anthropology Models of Mental Function and Behavior
This chapter provides a historical overview of anthropological research in the field of mental health. The historical legacies of colonialism influenced early perceptioce of mental illness cross-culturally. Understanding this history can be helpful to heed calls for anti-racist and anti-colonial psychiatry today. The chapter then explores cultural concepts of distress as a lece to better understand individual's, community's, and society's framing of the causes, coceequences, and resolution of psychological distress. Cultural concepts of distress can be best understood through the lece of ethnopsychology, which is a holistic understanding of emotioce, distress, the self, and society from a cultural perspective. By the conclusion of this chapter, readers will have a stronger understanding of the roots of current psychiatric nosologies and the importance of cross-cultural understanding for the best public health and clinical practice.
