Understanding mental illness in India and Britain

Abstract

The paper argues that conceptions of mental illness and its treatment often stem from the normative, social, and cultural constructions of mental illness. Psychiatrists, psychologists, and other health professionals do not work in a social and cultural vacuum. They work within the accepted traditions and values which are prevalent in their own cultures. To understand mental illness it is therefore necessary to examine the salient normative beliefs, attitudes, and values of a given culture, which guide behaviours at a personal, social, and cultural level.

This paper proposes a comprehensive cross-cultural theoretical and empirical model which permits a close examination and a systematic comparison of mental illness in two cultures: India and Britain. The main points underlying the model are also applicable to eastern and western cultures as a whole. The proposed model, from which several testable hypotheses have been deduced, rests on the following four factors:

Individualism Communalism (Collectivism)

Materialism Spiritualism

Free Will Determinism

Cognitivism Emotionalism

The nature and importance of the factors in explaining mental illness and the culture-specific treatment strategies which follow in the two cultures are critically discussed in the paper.

Key words:

• mental illness
• India
• Britain
• culture