Overview

In The Movement for Global Mental Health: Critical Views from South and Southeast Asia, prominent anthropologists, public health physicians, and psychiatrists respond sympathetically but critically to the Movement for Global Mental Health (MGMH). They question some of its fundamental assumptions: the idea that mental disorders can clearly be identified; that they are primarily of biological origin; that the world is currently facing an epidemic of them; that the most appropriate treatments for them normally involve psycho-pharmaceutical drugs; and that local or indigenous therapies are of little interest or importance for treating them. The contributors argue that, on the contrary, defining mental disorders is difficult and culturally variable; that social and biographical factors are often important causes of them; that the epidemic of mental disorders may be an effect of new ways of measuring them; and that the countries of South and Southeast Asia have abundant, though non-psychiatric, resources for dealing with them. In short, they advocate a thoroughgoing mental health pluralism.|1. Introduction: Global Mental Health: Critical Views from South Asia and Beyond - William Sax and Claudia Lang,Critical Histories, 2. Mental Ills for All: Genealogies of Global Mental Health - Stefan Ecks, 3. Schizoid Balinese? Anthropology's Double-Bind: Radical Alterity and Its Consequences for Schizophrenia - Annette Hornbacher, 4. Misdiagnosis: Global Mental Health, Social Determinants of Health and Beyond - Anindya Das and Mohan Rao,The Limits of Global Mental Health, 5. Jinns and the Proletarian Mumin Subject: Exploring the Limits of Global Mental Health in Bangladesh - Projit Bihari Mukharji, 6. Psychedelic Therapy: Diplomatic Re-compositions of Life/Non-life, and the Living and the Dead - Harish Naraindas,Alternatives, 7. The House of Love and the Mental Hospital: Zones of Care and Recovery in South India - Murphy Halliburton, 8. Ayurvedic Psychiatry and the Moral Physiology of Depression in Kerala - Claudia Lang, 9. Global Mental Therapy - William Sax,Afterwords, 10. Afterword - Johannes Quack, 11. 'Treatment' and Why We Need Alternatives: An Autoethnographic Reflection on Psychiatric Incarceration in India Anonymous, Index.|1. The contributors are leading figures from a variety of disciplines 2. The essays take a sympathetic but critical view of MGMH 3. The book takes a particular geographical point of view: from South and Southeast Asia.

Full Product Details

Author:   William Sax ,  Claudia Lang
Publisher:   Taylor & Francis Ltd
Imprint:   Routledge
ISBN:  

9781041188520

ISBN 10:   1041188528
Pages:   346
Publication Date:   01 December 2025
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Forthcoming
Availability:   Not yet available  
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Table of Contents

1. Introduction: Global Mental Health: Critical Views from South Asia and Beyond - William Sax and Claudia Lang,Critical Histories, 2. Mental Ills for All: Genealogies of Global Mental Health - Stefan Ecks, 3. Schizoid Balinese? Anthropology's Double-Bind: Radical Alterity and Its Consequences for Schizophrenia - Annette Hornbacher, 4. Misdiagnosis: Global Mental Health, Social Determinants of Health and Beyond - Anindya Das and Mohan Rao,The Limits of Global Mental Health, 5. Jinns and the Proletarian Mumin Subject: Exploring the Limits of Global Mental Health in Bangladesh - Projit Bihari Mukharji, 6. Psychedelic Therapy: Diplomatic Re-compositions of Life/Non-life, and the Living and the Dead - Harish Naraindas,Alternatives, 7. The House of Love and the Mental Hospital: Zones of Care and Recovery in South India - Murphy Halliburton, 8. Ayurvedic Psychiatry and the Moral Physiology of Depression in Kerala - Claudia Lang, 9. Global Mental Therapy - William Sax,Afterwords, 10. Afterword - Johannes Quack, 11. 'Treatment' and Why We Need Alternatives: An Autoethnographic Reflection on Psychiatric Incarceration in India Anonymous, Index.

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Author Information

William S. ('Bo') Sax studied at Banaras Hindu University, the University of Wisconsin, the University of Washington (Seattle), and the University of Chicago, and has taught at Harvard University, the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand, and the South Asia Institute in Heidelberg. He has published extensively on pilgrimage, gender, theater, aesthetics, ritual healing and medical anthropology. Claudia Lang is currently an associate professor (Heisenberg) of anthropology at University of Leipzig, Germany. Before, she was a postdoctoral researcher in Paris, France. She works on the anthropology of health in India and has published on different topics, including depression, traditional medicine, mental health, psychiatry, religion and ritual, health governance and subjectivities. She is currently working on the digitization of mental health and on environmental health.

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