Pathologies of the West: The Anthropology of Mental Illness in Euro-America - Softcover

Littlewood, Roland

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9780826458162: Pathologies of the West: The Anthropology of Mental Illness in Euro-America

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0826458165 ISBN 13: 9780826458162

Publisher: Continuum International Publishing Group Ltd., 2002

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Psychiatry conventionally regards spirit possession and dramatic healing rituals in non-European societies as forms of abnormality, if not mental illness. Roland Littlewood, a psychiatrist and social anthropologist, argues that this view developed as Western psychiatry obscured the political origin of its own disturbing cultural patterns. This work is an approach to psychiatric illness in its international perspective and an introduction to developments in the social anthropology of medicine. It examines critically the relevance of phenomenological, structural and ethological approaches to understanding extreme personal experience. Professor Littlewood argues that anthropology must not simply provide a "cultural" alternative to sociological critiques of medicine, whilst psychiatry itself has to take into account the personal embodiment of cultural values.

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About the Author:

Roland Littlewood is a clinical psychiatrist and Professor of Anthropology and Psychiatry at University College London, where he is the joint-director of the Centre for Medical Anthropology. He is a past President of the Royal Anthropological Institute. He is the author of many books, including Pathology and Identity (1993) which was awarded the Wellcome Medal for Anthropology As Applied to Medicine.

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