In this ten-week long module students will be introduced to specific literature detailing the cultural basis of Western psychology and psychiatry. This will include consideration of historical, contemporary, theoretical and applied issues. The class will understand principles underpinning the ‘new cross-cultural psychiatry’, and consideration of concepts such as relativism and universality of mental disorders across cultures, cultural validity, category errors, culture bound syndromes, and the consequences of applying a minority Euro-American psychiatry to the majority world.

Based on literature from anthropology, sociology, linguistics, and health policy, students will gain knowledge on how mental health and illness are constructed and enacted in different societies, with a particular focus on South Asia. Students will learn how to unpack presumed universal mental categories such as emotion and cognition. Phenomena such as psychologisation, somatisation, possession, stigma, and insight will be examined in-depth. Through illustrative case studies and clinical vignettes, the course will critically examine and attempt to reformulate received theories in the field of adult psychiatry, child and adolescent development, psychotherapy, policy and service delivery, and locate these in a cultural context. The course will also critique national, cross-national and cross-cultural research, and address the challenge of developing innovative culturally valid methodologies that aim to capture local suffering and address outcomes of relevance to both clinicians and the communities concerned.

The module will be taught in a seminar format. Student teams (3-4 in each team) will be allocated papers in advance. They will present a critical review of allocated papers in seminars. This will be followed by a discussion on the topic, facilitated by the course tutor.

Learning outcomes

These are the intended learning outcomes for the module:

Knowledge of conceptualization, expression and management of mental distress across cultures.
	Knowledge of key research methods in anthropological psychiatry.
	Skills in critically evaluating published literature in cultural psychiatry.
	Skills in conducting anthropologically applied research projects in the clinical and public health domain.
	Understanding the application of the research principles of medical anthropology to mental health across cultures.