A Different Approach to Mental Illness
The psychological tests used to evaluate Greenlandic parents’ caregiving capabilities have faced criticism for overlooking cultural differences, which could potentially result in the wrongful removal of children from Greenlandic families living in Denmark.
This is just one of many examples that highlight the growing awareness of the need for a more inclusive and interdisciplinary approach to mental healthcare – and that is precisely the focus of CULTMIND.
A multidisciplinary melting pot with a holistic focus
“We are a humanities center that actively engages with psychiatry, ” explains CULTMIND’s leader and historian of psychiatry, Ana Antic.
Since the establishment of CULTMIND just over two years ago, Antic has sought to expand collaboration between disciplines such as history, anthropology, psychiatry, psychology, literature, art, and philosophy.
She emphasizes the importance of understanding the broader context in which mental illness occurs – including historical, cultural, and social factors. She argues that this calls for a shift away from strictly biomedical models, and a move toward a more integrated approach that considers the whole person, their lived experience, and the broader structures that have shaped their lives. Further, the ways in which suffering and mental illness are conceptualized outside of the clinic are very important for the clinical encounter – hence the need to engage with humanities disciplines.
“One of our colleagues is writing about the culture of silence in Greenland. She is studying why Greenlandic people don’t talk about trauma, and whether this reticence is in fact a problem. She argues that silence has a broader cultural role and can’t just be pushed against or ignored,” Antic explains.
She points out that the pressure to talk about negative experiences is a specifically Western cultural phenomenon. In certain cultures, pushing people to talk about trauma is problematic, because it is thought that discussing such things might reawaken them, or may simply be considered bad luck.
Taking knowledge beyond academia
CULTMIND is also committed to working closely with psychiatrists and clinicians outside of the university setting and sharing the center’s insights with professionals on the mental health frontline.
“Our core partner is the Competence Centre for Transcultural Psychiatry. We also work with the Center for Arts and Mental Health, where we met doctors who were genuinely interested and identified the need for a forum comprising experts from different humanities and social science disciplines. They deal with patients from various parts of the world, but their medical training has not adequately equipped them for that. While we can’t tell them how to treat their patients, we can provide expert insights into cultural factors and the role of different cultural settings.”
Antic and her team are working with the Transcultural Psychiatry Section of the World Psychiatric Association, to initiate research-based discussions about the importance of history and historical awareness for the current practice of transcultural psychiatry and for addressing present-day clinical challenges.
Another example of CULTMIND’s outreach is its collaboration with the anti-stigma program One of Us, which combats the stigma and discrimination often faced by people living with mental illness. This initiative organizes events and projects that foster dialogue between patients and psychiatrists in order to promote a more inclusive and supportive environment. It also works in tandem with one of the projects based at CULTMIND: “Cultured Emotions: A Conceptual History of Alexithymia”.
Finally, CULTMIND also collaborates with transcultural psychiatry clinics and research centers – particularly with the Transcultural Centre in Sweden and the Department of Social and Transcultural Psychiatry at McGill University in Canada – to create bridges between clinical and humanities work, address cross-cultural concerns, and provide interdisciplinary support.
Summer schools for a new kind of psychiatry
One of CULTMIND’s latest initiatives is the development of summer schools for psychiatrists and other mental health practitioners. These programs are designed to expose clinical practitioners to interdisciplinary perspectives, with a particular focus on the structural, social, and cultural dimensions of mental health.
“Psychiatry engages deeply with concepts from the humanities, such as culture, society, migration, political discrimination, and political oppression, all of which are concepts that psychiatrists encounter through their patients,” Antic explains.
“Psychiatry and mental health practice would benefit greatly from becoming truly interdisciplinary, engaging with these concepts and navigating differences of experience, as well as gaining a greater understanding of how the clinic relates to broader historical, political, and social contexts,” She concludes.
