The Culture of Mental Illness and Psychiatric Practice in Africa


Book Description

In many African countries, mental health issues, including the burden of serious mental illness and trauma, have not been adequately addressed. These essays shed light on the treatment of common and chronic mental disorders, including mental illness and treatment in the current climate of economic and political instability, access to health care, access to medicines, and the impact of HIV-AIDS and other chronic illness on mental health. While problems are rampant and carry real and devastating consequences, this volume promotes an understanding of the African mental health landscape in service of reform.




Focus on Depression Research


Book Description

The global community is negatively impacted on a large-scale with tens of millions of people worldwide suffering from major depression. Economic growth is being stunted and lifestyles and lives crippled. Unfortunately, it is not clear what the myriads of causative factors are. Is it stress alone or stress caused by medical or psychological disorders or unknown combinations of these and other factors? This new book tackles these issues head on by presenting the latest research findings in this pandemic. Trans-Cultural Studies; Investigating Major Depressive Disorders from an Evolutionary Theory Perspective: Fitness Hindrances and The Social Navigation Hypothesis; The Elaborated Cognitive Vulnerability-Transactional Stress Theory of Depression: Introduction of an Integrative General Model and Review of Evidence; Cardiomotor Circuitry, Angina, and Inflammation Mediators in Post-Myocardial Infarction Depression; Eating Disorders: Psycho-dynamic Approach and Therapeutic Attitudes; Cholesterol, Depression, and Suicidal Behaviour; Depression, and Pharmacological Treatments: Biologic Interactions; Antidepressants in the Acute Treatment of Adolescent Major Depression; A New Evaluation Scale for Depression Using a Verbal Information and a Multivariate Analysis; Index.




An Impossible Inheritance


Book Description

Weaving sound historical research with rich ethnographic insight, An Impossible Inheritance tells the story of the emergence, disavowal, and afterlife of a distinctive project in transcultural psychiatry initiated at the Fann Psychiatric Clinic in Dakar, Senegal during the 1960s and 1970s. Today’s clinic remains haunted by its past and Katie Kilroy-Marac brilliantly examines the complex forms of memory work undertaken by its affiliates over a sixty year period. Through stories such as that of the the ghost said to roam the clinic’s halls, the mysterious death of a young doctor sometimes attributed to witchcraft, and the spirit possession ceremonies that may have taken place in Fann’s courtyard, Kilroy-Marac argues that memory work is always an act of the imagination and a moral practice with unexpected temporal, affective, and political dimensions. By exploring how accounts about the Fann Psychiatric Clinic and its past speak to larger narratives of postcolonial and neoliberal transformation, An Impossible Inheritance examines the complex relationship between memory, history, and power within the institution and beyond.




Index of NLM Serial Titles


Book Description

A keyword listing of serial titles currently received by the National Library of Medicine.




Current Catalog


Book Description

First multi-year cumulation covers six years: 1965-70.




Historical Dictionary of the Republic of Guinea-Bissau


Book Description

Guinea-Bissau is a small country in West Africa, and yet it managed to wrest its independence from Portugal back in 1973, at the cost of a long and bitter struggle against seemingly implacable odds. This was a time to be proud of, and there was also a moment about two decades ago, when it looked like a trendsetter for democracy. Since then things have gone seriously wrong, with a collapsing infrastructure, a dilapidated economy and a political stage prone to military coups d’etats. This fourth edition of Historical Dictionary of Guinea-Bissau tells the long and sometimes unpleasant story. However, like all the country historical dictionaries, it tells it several times and in several ways. First, the chronology traces the history of what became Guinea-Bissau, and this over a period of centuries and not just decades. Then the introduction recounts that history again, providing more insight and understanding, and conveys a good idea of how things are going now. The details follow in the dictionary section with entries on important persons, places, institutions, and events among other things. And the bibliography points to further reading.




Spiritual and Mental Health Crisis in Globalizing Senegal


Book Description

Spiritual and Mental Health Crisis in Globalizing Senegal explores the history of mental health in Senegal, and how psychological difficulties were expressed in the terms of spiritualism, magic, witchcraft, spirit possession, and ancestor worship. Focused on the effervescent and fruitful early post-colonial years at the Fann Hospital, situated at the famed University of Dakar, Cheikh Anta Diop, this book reveals provocative treatment innovations via case studies of individuals struggling for health and healing, and thus operates as a suspension bridge between scholarship on witchcraft and magic on the one side and the history psychiatry and psychoanalysis on the other. Through these case studies, this book creates a new route of exchange for healing knowledge for a broad array of West African spiritual troubles, mental illness, magic, soul cannibalism, witchcraft, spirit possession, and psychosis.




Global Mental Health


Book Description

This is the definitive textbook on global mental health, an emerging priority discipline within global health, which places priority on improving mental health and achieving equity in mental health for all people worldwide.




Spirit Possession and Spirit Mediumship in Africa and Afro-America


Book Description

Originally published in 1978 Spirit Possession and Spirit Mediumship in Africa and Afro-America is an incredibly diverse and comprehensive bibliography on published works containing ethnographic data on, and analysis of, spirit possession and spirit mediumship in North and Sub-Saharan Africa and in some Afro-American communities in the Western Hemisphere. The sources on Western Afro-American communities were chosen to shed light on the African continent and the Americas. The bibliography, while not exhaustive, provides extensive research on the area of research in spiritualism in Africa and Afro-America. The bibliography also provides unique sources on spirit cults, ritual or ethnic groups and will be of especial interest to researchers. Although published in the late 70s, this book will still provide an incredibly useful research tool for academics in the area of religion, with a focus on spiritualism and non-western religions.