A Training Resource, Film and Commentary for Mental Health Professionals
Culture and Madness combines film, research and clinical scenarios to demonstrate how cultural influences pervade mental health thinking, practice and policy. At its heart a 150-minute film, How Culture Matters, explores how cultural communities in Britain consider mental health and illness. It shows conversations about culture and mental health taking place in different community contexts: interviews with cultural communities; between members of different communities; between mental health professionals, and experts in cultural theory and practice. The accompanying text explores the issues raised in the film, accompanied by clinical examples and summarised research drawn across a range of disciplines. In articulating the subtle and textured place of ‘culture’ in the everyday lives of all communities, this resource will encourage mental health professionals to adopt a reflective approach to mental health theory and practice.
Full of unique insights and learning points for clinical practice, this resource is required reading for professionals and trainers in the field of mental health, and will be a valuable tool for lecturers and students on mental health courses.
Renos K. Papadopoulos PhD, Professor and Director, Centre for Trauma, Asylum and Refugees, University of Essex wrote:The book invites the reader to know deeply, and to wonder
with confidence at the shapes and trajectories of working with
difference. Here being different is not a black and white barrier,
but a gateway to life in colour. A vivacious text, for students and
clinicians.
In the plethora of literature that tends either to trivialise these
themes with slogans or obscure them with academic obfuscation,
this book stands out with its soundness, participatory learning
and clarity. It has all the qualities of becoming a classic.