This far-reaching volume analyzes the social, cultural, political, and economic factors contributing to mental health issues and shaping treatment options in the Asian and Pacific world. Multiple lenses examine complex experiences and needs in this vast region, identifying not only cultural issues at the individual and collective levels, but also the impacts of colonial history, effects of war and disasters, and the current climate of globalization on mental illness and its care. These concerns are located in the larger context of physical health and its determinants, worldwide goals such as reducing global poverty, and the evolving mental health response to meet rising challenges affecting the diverse populations of the region. Chapters focus on countries in East, Southeast, and South Asia plus Oceania and Australia, describing: · National history of psychiatry and its acceptance. · Present-day mental health practice and services. · Mental/physical health impact of recent social change. · Disparities in accessibility, service delivery, and quality of care. · Collaborations with indigenous and community approaches to healing. · Current mental health resources, the state of policy, and areas for intervention. A welcome addition to the global health literature, Mental Health in Asia and the Pacific brings historical depth and present-day insight to practitioners providing services in this diverse area of the world as well as researchers and policymakers studying the region.
This volume is the result of a conference on mental health research in Asia and the Pacific held at the East-West Center, University of Hawaii, in 1966, at which a distinguished multidisciplinary group of investigators from Australasia, Europe, and North America explored such questions as how Asian countries had made use of Western psychiatric theories and techniques to understand similarities and differences in behavior in cross-cultural settings, as well as attempted to reach some agreement on common denominators in human behavior regardless of cultural differences. The editors, Dr. William Caudill, a social anthropologist, and Dr. Tsung-yi Lin, a psychiatric epidemiologist, both of whom participated in the conference, have done an admirable job of organizing the work of their colleagues (and keeping their opinions from intruding) into three topical sections which present the proceedings and discussion in such a way as to be most helpful and economical to the reader.
This volume is the result of a conference on mental health research in Asia and the Pacific held at the East-West Center, University of Hawaii, in 1966, at which a distinguished multidisciplinary group of investigators from Australasia, Europe, and North America explored such questions as how Asian countries had made use of Western psychiatric theories and techniques to understand similarities and differences in behavior in cross-cultural settings, as well as attempted to reach some agreement on common denominators in human behavior regardless of cultural differences. The editors, Dr. William Caudill, a social anthropologist, and Dr. Tsung-yi Lin, a psychiatric epidemiologist, both of whom participated in the conference, have done an admirable job of organizing the work of their colleagues (and keeping their opinions from intruding) into three topical sections which present the proceedings and discussion in such a way as to be most helpful and economical to the reader.
