Mental Health in Namibia

Theodore T. Bartholomew

Psychology and Developing Societies, 2016, vol. 28, issue 1, 101-125

Abstract: Psychological distress is inherently constructed within contexts and the unique, cultural meaning systems that have developed to understand mental illness. Moreover, cultures naturally develop their own systems of healing, grounded in traditional practices. Western psychology and psychiatry have, through globalisation and colonial histories, imposed systems of mental health care and definitions of mental illness. In doing so, local understandings and ways of being regarding mental health have often been eclipsed. This is no less true in Namibia. However, much of the existing mental health literature from Namibia explores mental illness from a Western lens of psychopathology. This article discusses the relevant research about mental illness in Namibia and situates this within related literature from other Southern African countries. Several cultural factors across diverse groups in Namibia are important to more fully understand what mental illness and treatment are throughout this country. The cultural role of diverse conceptualisations of mental illness is discussed in order to explore potential areas of growth in Namibian mental health and intervention. The nature of traditional healing in other Southern African contexts is also addressed, given that although traditional healing exists in Namibia, researchers have not yet explored it within the context of psychological distress. Recommendations for mental health and psychological treatment in Namibia are discussed.

Keywords: Mental health; traditional healing; Namibia; integration of traditional healing and therapy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0971333615622909 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:psydev:v:28:y:2016:i:1:p:101-125

DOI: 10.1177/0971333615622909

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Psychology and Developing Societies
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().