Culture,Stress and Recovery from Schizophrenia: Lessons from the Field for Global Mental Health |
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Authors: | Neely Laurenzo Myers |
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Institution: | (1) Center for the Study of Complementary and Alternative Therapies, University of Virginia, P.O. Box 800782, Charlottesville, VA 22908-0782, USA |
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Abstract: | This cultural case study investigates one U.S. psychosocial rehabilitation organization’s (Horizons) attempt to implement
the recovery philosophy of the U.S. Recovery Movement and offers lessons from this local attempt that may inform global mental
health care reform. Horizons’ “recovery-oriented” initiatives unwittingly mobilized stressful North American discourses of
valued citizenship. At times, efforts to “empower” people diagnosed with schizophrenia to become esteemed self-made citizens
generated more stressful sociocultural conditions for people whose daily lives were typically remarkably stressful. A recovery-oriented
mental health system must account for people diagnosed with schizophrenia’s sensitivity to stress and offer consumers contextually
relevant coping mechanisms. Any attempt to export U.S. mental health care practices to the rest of the world must acknowledge
that (1) sociocultural conditions affect schizophrenia outcomes; (2) schizophrenia outcomes are already better in the developing
world than in the United States; and (3) much of what leads to “better” outcomes in the developing world may rely on the availability
of locally relevant techniques to address stress. |
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Keywords: | |
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