Cultural Psychopathological Research

Mental health is one of the most neglected fields of healthcare. There is so much suffering related to mental health all over the world, which is either not recognized or goes untreated because of lack of expertise or other resources. Although stress and distress have been important topics in medical anthropology, respectively mental health itself has not received sufficient attention in either anthropology or public health. This issue has assumed international importance with the emergence of marked increases in psychiatric and behavioral problems, in tandem with exponentially increasing numbers of refugees worldwide and escalating disruption of social structure such as family and local communities. More over mental health problems and behavior problems are closely related to health problems of
Its focus on the social world holds promise to make significant inroads in reducing suffering and improving people’s everyday lives. Psychosocial anthropology is a hybrid field of study. It combines the classic concerns of Euro-American psychology-personality, childhood development, and mental illness-with evidence from other cultures and distinctive groups of the west. Psychological anthropology carries out debate between relativism between universalism. It connects experience to shared cultural symbols; it shows individual minds and collective traditions-psyche and culture-depend on each other. The question we need to include when conducting research of mental illness should be, is there universal human nature which underlies diverse cultural forms? This should be the first question we try to answer, with understanding of the society being studied and their views and beliefs of what mental illness is to them. It is through these culturally sensitive methods that we can hope to gain understanding of human conditions and move forward to do the least harm and strive for the most