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“We Need Other Human Beings in Order to be Human”: Examining the Indigenous Philosophy of Umunthu and Strengthening Mental Health Interventions
This paper examines how cultural, historical and contemporary perspectives of mental health continue to inform ways of understanding and responding to mental distress even under the biomedical gaze of the Movement for Global Mental Health (MGMH). Based on experiences in Malawi, the authors explore t...
Autores principales: | , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Springer US
2020
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8526463/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33211266 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11013-020-09692-4 |
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author | Wright, Jerome Jayawickrama, Janaka |
author_facet | Wright, Jerome Jayawickrama, Janaka |
author_sort | Wright, Jerome |
collection | PubMed |
description | This paper examines how cultural, historical and contemporary perspectives of mental health continue to inform ways of understanding and responding to mental distress even under the biomedical gaze of the Movement for Global Mental Health (MGMH). Based on experiences in Malawi, the authors explore three prominent interventions (practical support, counselling and support groups) employed by village health workers within a mental health task-shifting initiative and reveal how the ancient philosophy of Umunthu with its values of interconnectedness, inclusion and inter-relationships informs and shapes the direction of these interventions. Practical support is marshalled through traditional village structures, counselling provides advice and an encouragement to hope, and support groups provide a place for emotional exchange and a forum for the enactment of values, reflection and reinforcement of Umunthu. What are pronounced as biomedical psychosocial interventions are in fact the delivery of culturally embedded therapeutic approaches. Historical and socio-political evidence is offered to explain the dominance of biomedical perspectives and the HSAs’ responses and a call is made for a transformation of MGMH to embrace rich philosophies such as Umunthu and enact respectful, inclusive and democratic values to enlist collaborations between equals to develop relevant and effective knowledge and local responses to mental distress. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-8526463 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2020 |
publisher | Springer US |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-85264632021-11-04 “We Need Other Human Beings in Order to be Human”: Examining the Indigenous Philosophy of Umunthu and Strengthening Mental Health Interventions Wright, Jerome Jayawickrama, Janaka Cult Med Psychiatry Article This paper examines how cultural, historical and contemporary perspectives of mental health continue to inform ways of understanding and responding to mental distress even under the biomedical gaze of the Movement for Global Mental Health (MGMH). Based on experiences in Malawi, the authors explore three prominent interventions (practical support, counselling and support groups) employed by village health workers within a mental health task-shifting initiative and reveal how the ancient philosophy of Umunthu with its values of interconnectedness, inclusion and inter-relationships informs and shapes the direction of these interventions. Practical support is marshalled through traditional village structures, counselling provides advice and an encouragement to hope, and support groups provide a place for emotional exchange and a forum for the enactment of values, reflection and reinforcement of Umunthu. What are pronounced as biomedical psychosocial interventions are in fact the delivery of culturally embedded therapeutic approaches. Historical and socio-political evidence is offered to explain the dominance of biomedical perspectives and the HSAs’ responses and a call is made for a transformation of MGMH to embrace rich philosophies such as Umunthu and enact respectful, inclusive and democratic values to enlist collaborations between equals to develop relevant and effective knowledge and local responses to mental distress. Springer US 2020-11-19 2021 /pmc/articles/PMC8526463/ /pubmed/33211266 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11013-020-09692-4 Text en © The Author(s) 2020 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . |
spellingShingle | Article Wright, Jerome Jayawickrama, Janaka “We Need Other Human Beings in Order to be Human”: Examining the Indigenous Philosophy of Umunthu and Strengthening Mental Health Interventions |
title | “We Need Other Human Beings in Order to be Human”: Examining the Indigenous Philosophy of Umunthu and Strengthening Mental Health Interventions |
title_full | “We Need Other Human Beings in Order to be Human”: Examining the Indigenous Philosophy of Umunthu and Strengthening Mental Health Interventions |
title_fullStr | “We Need Other Human Beings in Order to be Human”: Examining the Indigenous Philosophy of Umunthu and Strengthening Mental Health Interventions |
title_full_unstemmed | “We Need Other Human Beings in Order to be Human”: Examining the Indigenous Philosophy of Umunthu and Strengthening Mental Health Interventions |
title_short | “We Need Other Human Beings in Order to be Human”: Examining the Indigenous Philosophy of Umunthu and Strengthening Mental Health Interventions |
title_sort | “we need other human beings in order to be human”: examining the indigenous philosophy of umunthu and strengthening mental health interventions |
topic | Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8526463/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33211266 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11013-020-09692-4 |
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