Kaaren Mathias, Noah Bunkley, Pooja Pillai, Kenneth A Ae-Ngibise, Lily Kpobi, Dan Taylor, Kaustubh Joag, Meenal Rawat, Weeam Hammoudeh, Suzan Mitwalli, Ashraf Kagee, Andre van Rensburg, Dörte Bemme, Rochelle A Burgess, Sumeet Jain, Hanna Kienzler, Ursula M Read
Global mental health [GMH] scholarship and practice has typically focused on the unmet needs and barriers to mental health in communities, developing biomedical and psychosocial interventions for integration into formal health care platforms in response. In this article, we analyse four diverse settings to disrupt the emphasises on health system weaknesses, treatment gaps and barriers which can perpetuate harmful hierarchies and colonial and medical assumptions, or a 'deficit model'. We draw on the experiential knowledge of community mental health practitioners and researchers working in Ghana, India, the Occupied Palestinian Territory and South Africa to describe key assets existing in 'informal' community mental health care systems and how these are shaped by socio-political contexts...
2024: PLOS Glob Public Health