Global Mental Health

3-0-9 units. HASS-S · Undergraduate

Provides skills to critically analyze issues of mental health in historical and cross-cultural contexts. Studies mental illness as a complex biopsychosocial experience embedded in particular political and economic frameworks. Examines the relationships among culture, gender, embodiment, and emotional distress; power inequalities and ideas of the "normal" and "abnormal;" and how such conceptions influence care-giving practices, whether in traditional or biomedical contexts. Evaluates how the disciplines of psychology, psychoanalysis, and psychiatry have developed in the West, and considers their influence on mental health interventions in global settings. Limited to 25.