The Palgrave Handbook of Mental Health Practice in Sub-Saharan Africa

“This volume demonstrates that, far from being a passive tabula rasa for the imposition of global mental health interventions, researchers and clinicians in Africa are creating novel ways to support people affected by mental health conditions and their families, drawing on both the ‘local’ and the ‘global’ to deliver interventions and approaches which are relevant and acceptable to popular contexts and populations in this diverse and dynamic continent.” —Ursula Read is Lecturer in the department of Public Health at the University of Essex, UK “The book stands out in its ability to showcase the diverse perspectives and experiences of practitioners and their descriptions of the interventions and community outreach being carried out and the strategies they think are needed to advance mental health services in these settings.” —Dixon Chibanda is a Professor of Psychiatry & Global Mental Health at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and Director of the African Mental Health Research Initiative (AMARI). The focus of this handbook is to highlight the key issues in addressing the challenges and opportunities to promote mental health is Sub-Saharan Africa. A unique feature of this work is the privileging of African voices in expressing the strengths, vulnerabilities, and unique approaches which have been found within the Sub-Saharan context. The handbook is broken into three sections. The first introduces the handbook and the general issues and concepts discussed. The second describes diverse community outreach and mental health interventions applied by the contributors in diverse Sub-Saharan Africa countries and contexts and addressing a range of mental health topics. The third focuses on systemic issues that affect mental health service delivery, with recommendations provided. Opportunities for creating new models for sharing practices and disseminating knowledge generated by Sub-Saharan African practitioners for their culture and contexts are discussed. Kate E. Murray researches health equity and how research, health services and educational systems can be more accessible to everyone. She has over two decades of clinical, theoretical, and applied research experience on mental health and cross-cultural-related topics, using participatory action research to develop creative outputs to maximise community impact. Robert D. Schweitzer is an academic, researcher, and clinician. His research and teaching have focused on global mental health, including as former Course Leader of the Australia Awards Course on Mental Health in Sub-Saharan Africa. Ashraf Kagee is Distinguished Professor of Psychology at Stellenbosch University, co-Director of the Alan Flisher Centre for Public Mental Health. His research focuses on common mental disorders among persons living with HIV, factors influencing treatment adherence, and public mental health. Lily Kpobi is a research fellow at the University of Ghana where she researches community mental health systems and how to optimally integrate biomedical and indigenous healthcare.