Beginning last Fall 2014, we began compiling lists of sessions at the Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association that we thought would be of interest to our readers attending the conference. These sessions included topics such as drug use and abuse, reproductive medicine, and global health. This year, we again feature our series on the upcoming conference, to be held November 18-22 in Denver, Colorado (more information here.) You can also browse last week’s installment of the blog, where we highlighted sessions on biomedicine and the body at the upcoming Society for Social Studies of Science (4S) meeting, also in Denver, to be held November 11-14 (details here.) This week, we present three paper sessions on the anthropology of mental health care. The sessions are organized chronologically by time and date.

Image via AAA Website

Re-Institutionalizing Care: Anthropological Engagements with Mental Health Courts and Alternative Forensic Psychiatry Interventions in North America

Saturday, November 21st 10:15am-12:00pm (details about this session.)

Topics in this session will include racial disparities in a mental health court in Canada; the relationship between criminal justice officials, psychiatric crisis, and mental health; dogma and psychiatry; and mental health care reform. The session lists itself as particularly of note to applied and practicing anthropologists, especially those with an interest in mental health care, policy, and reform.

From the Streets to the Asylum: Medicalizing Vulnerable Children

Saturday, November 21st 10:15am-12:00pm (details about this session.)

This session includes work on the following topics: humanitarian care and child homelessness in Cairo, Egypt; drug use and treatment amongst juvenile prisoners in Brazil; immigrant youth and mental health in France; and notions of American childhood in the context of mental health. Though the session is sponsored by the Anthropology of Children and Youth Interest Group, its topics overlap with many contemporary issues in medical anthropology and the social study of mental health care.

Making Sense of Mental Health Amidst Rising Rural Social Inequality in North America: Class, Race, and Identity in Treatment-Seeking

Saturday, November 21st, 1:45pm-3:30pm (details about this session.)

Presenters in this session will speak on these issues: mental health and poverty in rural New England; mental health and prescription drug abuse in Appalachia; citizenship and mental health in Oklahoma; care access in remote Alaskan communities; community mental health activism; and inequity and depression in rural Kentucky. These sessions will be of interest to scholars of social justice and medicine, as well as those studying mental health care access and the culture of psychiatry in the United States.