Mental Health and Well-Being in the Global South

Abstract

The topic of mental health development in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) is complicated: They are largely non-western in cultural background (see Chapter 1 for discussion of culture); many were colonized by western powers in the past (see Chapter 5 for discussion of colonial psychiatryt) and some still struggle with postcolonial problems resulting in civil conflict, not to speak of neo-colonial economic domination (see Chapter 8); and, on the whole, they have a multiplicity of fields where development is required. In reality it is artificial and probably not all that productive to separate ‘mental health’ development from development in general. It is important to keep in mind too that the language of ‘mental health’ and ‘mental illness’ that we use in discussing development is embedded in western culture, the concepts themselves being derived from the study of madness as understood in the West, and so the discourse on ‘mental health’ is beset by problems of cultural translation and mistranslation (Chapter 2). Finally, unlike ‘development’ during colonial times (when the benefit was mainly for the colonial power concerned), development in a postcolonial world must be primarily for the benefit of local people in LMICs and geared to their cultural and social expectations. Yet, I concede that compromises may be required in the real world, mainly because some of the resources (in the form of investment) and some of the know-how for development has to come from high-income countries (HICs) and also because there is undoubtedly much that LMICs can learn from the way things are done in the developed world in many fields of health; for example, in general medical services such as HIV and tuberculosis.