Introduction

Abstract

This book is about mental health worldwide—across the globe. I decided not to use the term ‘global’ in the main title for the following reasons: First, the concept of ‘globalization’ in the field of mental health means different things to different people—a matter discussed in Chapter 1. Second, the term ‘global mental health’ has been popularized and pushed recently as a new and special subject, causing confusion by linking mental health development to the imposition of global solutions to mental health problems everywhere; doing so by using terms such as ‘scaling up’ (services) and ‘evidence-based practice’ that imply an ideology that (western) psychiatry and psychology have all the answers and that there is very little space for sociology, anthropology, religion and philosophy, and no place at all for non-western medical systems, philosophies, religions and healing.