Global Mental Health: Interdisciplinary challenges for a field in motion
Abstract
In recent years, efforts in Global Mental Health (GMH) have evolved alongside critical engagement with the field's claims and interventions. GMH has shifted its agenda and epistemological underpinnings, increased its evidence base, and joined other global policy platforms such as the Sustainable Development Goals. This editorial introduction to a thematic issue traces the recent shifts in the GMH agenda and discusses the changing construct of "mental health" as GMH moves away from a categorical biomedical model toward dimensional and transdiagnostic approaches and embraces digital technologies. We highlight persistent and emerging lines of inquiry and advocate for meaningful interdisciplinary engagement. Taken together, the articles in this special issue of Transcultural Psychiatry provide a snapshot of current interdisciplinary work in GMH that considers the socio-cultural and historical dimensions of mental health important and proposes reflexive development of interventions and implementation strategies.
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The detrimental side-effects and stigma associated with long-term reliance on psychiatric treatment seem to have been severely understated.
“the detrimental side-effects and stigma associated with long-term reliance on psychiatric treatment seem to have been severely understated (Bemme and Kirmayer 2020;Read 2012).”
From Throwing therapy at the problem mental health and humanitarian intervention in Palabek refugee settlement, northern Uganda (2023) · cites this paper as Bemme and Kirmayer 2020
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Torre, C. (2023) · London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) · doi:10.21953/lse.00004557
- Authors
- Bemme, D., & Kirmayer, L. J.
- Affiliations
- University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (US)
- McGill University (CA)
- Corresponding author
- Bemme, Dörte
- Venue
- Transcultural Psychiatry
- Publisher
- SAGE Publications
- Published
- 2020-02
- Volume
- 57
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 3-18
- ISSN
- 1363-4615 (ISSN-L)
- 1461-7471
- OpenAlex
- W3006710561
- Cited by
- 103
- References
- 21
- Citations by year
- 2026: 10 · 2025: 18 · 2024: 19 · 2023: 20 · 2022: 20 · 2021: 8 · 2020: 8
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Transcultural Psychiatry (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Mental Health Treatment and Access
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Philosophy › Mental Health and Psychiatry
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Historical Psychiatry and Medical Practices
- Keywords
- global mental health, interdisciplinary research, transdiagnostic approach, digital mental health tools, Sustainable Development Goals, history of mental health, implementation strategies
- MeSH terms
- Sustainable Development, Ethnopsychology, Humans, Mental Health, Global Health, Interdisciplinary Communication, Cultural Competency
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