Full Description
Anthropology and psychology share a long history of rivalry, collaboration, and mutual disregard. This volume reconsiders psychology as a field of anthropological enquiry. In doing so, it takes an ethnographic approach to psychology, examining psychotherapeutic practices and models of mental health at the heart of 'psy'. Featuring ethnographic studies of psychological therapies, subjects, and professionals, the book also suggests what an anthropological voice can offer to improve psychological healthcare. At the cutting edge of ethnographic research, this book brings together studies from the Global North and Global South, showing how psychological realities shape our understandings of what it means to be human.
Contents
Acknowledgements
Illustrations
Introduction: Thinking Ethnographically about Psychology
Mikkel Kenni Bruun
Chapter 1. Mixing Treatment Modalities: An Ethnography of Mental Healthcare Bricolage in Canada
Dina Bork
Chapter 2. Treating Patients 'Who Don't Speak': The Challenge of Treating Children with Eating Disorders in a Residential Facility in Italy
Giulia Sciolli
Chapter 3. More Likely Psychological? Exploring Mental Troubles and Psychology in Ouagadougou
Annigje van Dijk
Chapter 4. When the Counsellors Give: Material Support and Therapeutic Agency in State-Based Psychological Counselling Services in Sri Lanka
Nadia Augustyniak
Chapter 5. In (the) Practice: Pioneering Psychotherapy in Uganda
Julia Vorhölter
Chapter 6. Throwing Out the Psyche: Scientific Persuasions in British Psychotherapy
Mikkel Kenni Bruun
Chapter 7. Encoding Wellness: On Cultures of Risk when Building Digital Mental Wellb-Being Apps
Jennifer Cearns
Afterword: An Anthropology of Psychology in the Twenty-First Century
Keir Martin
Index
