This book is about the work of two psychiatrists in a village called Kota in the South Kanara District of the Karnataka State in India. The objective of the research was to study the prevalence and patterns of mental disorder in the community setting. Kota has a small population of Muslims and Christians, but the majority are Hindu. The book describes the way this was achieved, with the aim of facilitating better mental health care for rural populations.
Over the past two decades increasing interest has emerged in the contribu tions that the social sciences might make to the epidemiological study of patterns of health and disease. Several reasons can be cited for this increasing interest. Primary among these has been the rise of the chronic, non-infectious diseases as important causes of morbidity and mortality within Western populations during the 20th century. Generally speaking, the chronic, non infectious diseases are strongly influenced by lifestyle variables, which are themselves strongly influenced by social and cultural forces. The under standing of the effects of the behavioral factors in, say, hypertension, thus requires an understanding of the social and cultural factors which encourage obesity, a sedentary lifestyle, non-compliance with anti-hypertensive medica tions (or other prescribed regimens), and stress. Equally, there is a growing awareness that considerations of human behavior and its social and cultural determinants are important for understanding the distribution and control of infectious diseases. Related to this expansion of epidemiologic interest into the behavioral realm 'has been the development of etiological models which focus on the psychological, biological and socio-cultural characteristics of hosts, rather than exclusive concern with exposure to a particular agent or even behavioral risk. Also during this period advances in statistical and computing techniques have made accessible the ready testing of multivariate causal models, and so have encouraged the measurement of the effects of social and cultural factors on disease occurrence.
In this book, Kleinman proposes an international view of mental illness and mental care. Arthur Kleinman, M.D., examines how the prevalence and nature of disorders vary in different cultures, how clinicians make their diagnoses, and how they heal, and the educational and practical implications of a true understanding of the interplay between biology and culture.
Culture in Psychology breaks new ground by attempting to understand the complexity and specificity of cultural identities today. It rejects the idea that Western culture is a standard, or that any culture is homogenous and stable. Equally, it rejects the notion that culture is a mechanism that enhances reproductive fitness. Instead, it alerts psychologists to the many forms of 'foreignness' that research should address and to alliances psychology can make with other disciplines such as anthropology, feminism and psychoanalysis. Part one explores the origins of the new 'cultural psychology' in social change movements, in fields such as ethnography and cultural studies, and as a response to evolutionary psychology. Part two looks at how people create and sustain the meanings of social categories of 'class', gender, 'race' and ethnicity, while the third part examines the interaction between written and visual representations in popular culture and everyday lived culture. The final part examines the idiosyncratic significance cultural forms have for individuals and their unconscious meanings.
Five decades of independence have produced dramatic increases in womens’ educational achievements in India; but education for girls beyond a certain level is still perceived as socially risky. Based on ethnographic data and historical documents, this book explores the origins of that paradox. Contributors probe the complex relationships between traditional Indian social institutions the joint family, arranged marriage, dowry, and purdah, or sexual segregation and girls schooling. They find that a patrifocal family structure and ideology are often at the root of different family approaches to educating sons and daughters, and that concern for marriageability still plays a central role in womens’ educational choices and outcomes.
Madness and Distress in Music Education offers an in-depth exploration of mental health and emotional distress in the context of music education, offering new ways of thinking about these experiences and constructing ways to support distress through affirming pedagogy, practices, and policies in music education. Centering the lived experiences of 15 people in a range of roles across music education who self-identify an issue with their mental health, the volume addresses impacts on both students and educators. The author draws on Mad Studies and disability studies to present new paradigms for thinking about Madness and distress in the music context. An essential resource for music educators, music education researchers, and preservice students seeking to understand the complexities of mental health in the music classroom, this book considers how people conceptualize their mental health, how distress impacts participation in music education, how music education may support or exacerbate distress, and what supports for distress can be implemented in music education.
This volume provides multifaceted and multidisciplinary insights into the growing field of health studies. Providing inputs from the behavioural sciences as well as social sciences, it discusses the issues of recovery from illness, and growth and wellbeing, as situated in social and eco-cultural contexts, and addresses the modalities of health-related interventions in diverse contexts. The specific themes taken up by the contributors are post-trauma growth, resilience, gender and health, distress and wellness, indigenous healing, counselling and psychotherapy, disability-related interventions, self-healing, as well as health issues of special groups like adolescents and the elderly, cancer patients and those suffering from other chronic illnesses. Till recently, the medical model has prevailed as the chief form of understanding health and illness. This has led to marginalization of the context, localization of all health and wellness components within the individual, and to biological reductionism. The contributions to this volume propose corrective measures and provide diverse approaches in a balanced manner. This volume is useful for researchers and practitioners interested in health studies, including the behavioural sciences, social work, medical anthropology, and public health.
