The next few months we’ll be highlighting authors who have published in Culture, Medicine, and Psychiatry.
Scott D Stonington, Associate Professor of Anthropology and Internal Medicine, University of Michigan Ann Arbor
Scott Stonington is a cultural anthropologist and internal medicine physician. His first book, The Spirit Ambulance, won awards from multiple academic societies for ethnographic writing. His two major current projects address affect in clinical practice in the U.S. and pain management in Thailand.
In early COVID in the hospital, clinicians were driven into scientific and data-hungry frenzy trying to understand the virus, making their clinical practice very unstable, changing dozens of times daily in response to tweets, texts and news articles. The article is a case study on the dependence of clinical knowledge and practice on context, in contrast to the usual assumption that it is the “view from nowhere.”
Tell us a little bit about yourself and your research interests.
I practice hospital and primary care medicine, which makes me constantly look at social theory and ethnographic concepts through the lens of lived experience. My research always seems to return to that.
What drew you to this project?
I was thrust into working in the hospital in early COVID, at a time when I thought there was a good chance that I would die if I became infected (due to comorbid illnesses). I simply had to study that experience.
What was one of the most interesting findings?
The most interesting finding was that clinicians, afraid and trying to sort through rapid-fire contradictory ideas about COVID, entered a kind of trance, a bad trip, needing to imagine (or “hallucinate”) virus distributed everywhere. It was interesting that the fear wasn’t simply formless emotion, but that it infiltrated the very scientific expertise that they had previously thought of as objective.
What are you reading, listening to, and/or watching right now? (Doesn’t have to be anthropological!)
I just finished Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky. I thought it was just for pleasure, but there were so many wonderful ideas in it that it got my academic idea mill churning!
If there was one takeaway or action point you hope people will get from your work, what would it be?
I think that we fantasize that doctors should be completely objective, and it blinds us to some of the very important effects that their own emotion and experience injects into health systems.
The next few months we’ll be highlighting authors who have published in Culture, Medicine, and Psychiatry.
Assistant Professor, University of California, San Francisco
I am a social scientist who uses qualitative and mixed methods within infectious disease screening, diagnostics, and therapeutics. My research interests focus on understanding mental health trajectories during diagnosis and treatment, the influence of mental health on engagement with infectious disease care cascades, and implementation science approaches for integrating mental health services into infectious disease care.
This study explored how people living with HIV in rural Uganda understand and express psychological distress. Interviews were conducted with 42 people, including those living with HIV, healthcare workers, and community members. Two main local terms were used to describe mental distress: okweraliikirira (worry/apprehension) and okwenyamira (deep thoughts/many thoughts). These expressions of distress were specifically linked to HIV-related challenges like fear of death, stigma from family and community, disclosure concerns, and financial stress from managing HIV care. Both types of distress were said to worsen HIV medication adherence and could progress to more severe mental health problems if left unaddressed. Participants identified counseling and social support as key treatments. The study suggests that understanding culturally specific ways of expressing distress is important for healthcare provision. Using local terms rather than Western psychiatric labels like “depression” may help identify people who need psychosocial support and make screening culturally appropriate and effective.
Tell us a little bit about yourself and your research interests.
My research focuses on understanding the dynamics of mental health across care and treatment cascades for infectious diseases, primarily, TB and HIV.
What drew you to this project?
I worked on several studies that used mental health screeners among people living with infectious diseases, and from that work, I realized that the interpretation of the screeners and expressions of mental distress did not always map onto commonly used screeners.
What are you reading, listening to, and/or watching right now? (Doesn’t have to be anthropological!)
I have been reading Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life by William Finnegan and recently watched Downfall: The Case Against Boeing.
If there was one takeaway or action point you hope people will get from your work, what would it be?
Healthcare providers, mental health programs, and researchers should consider the relevance of incorporating culturally specific idioms of distress—like “okweraliikirira” (worry/apprehension) and “okwenyamira” (deep/many thoughts)—into their screening and treatment approaches rather than relying solely on Western diagnostic frameworks.
The next few months we’ll be highlighting authors who have published in Culture, Medicine, and Psychiatry.
Senior Research Fellow, University of Queensland
Nathalia Costa is passionate about deepening the understanding of healthcare issues through qualitative methods and methodologies, with a focus on theoretically grounded, critical, reflexive and collaborative approaches. She advocates for pluralist inquiries to achieve the intersubjective understandings needed for impactful collective action.
This critical rapid review examined non-clinical psychosocial support services for culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) populations delivered by lay health workers. Drawing on a critical realist framework and Brossard and Chandler’s taxonomy on culture and mental health, the review analysed 38 studies (10 quantitative, 7 mixed-methods, and 21 qualitative), mostly conducted in North America and Europe. While many interventions focused on specific populations (e.g., refugees, Latinx immigrants) and targeted outcomes like depression and trauma, fewer studies used multimodal approaches or focused on broad populations. Despite short intervention durations, most reported positive psychosocial outcomes. Qualitative findings underscored barriers such as inadequate resources and limited cultural alignment. The review found most studies operated within split-relativist paradigms, aiming to help participants navigate Eurocentric systems. Culturally responsive and context-sensitive models, prioritisation of social determinants of health and community engagement are likely to be critical to ensure best practice in non-clinical psychosocial support.
Tell us a little bit about yourself and your research interests.
I am a Brazilian scholar living and working in Australia, and committed to shaping, enhancing and transforming quantitative evidence through qualitative methods and methodologies to make research, practice and education more inclusive and nuanced. With postdoctoral studies in policy and at the interface of clinical science and sociology, I draw from these disciplines to explore healthcare challenges and generate insights that drive meaningful change.
What drew you to this project?
I was drawn to this project through my longstanding collaboration with A/Prof Rebecca Olson and Dr Jenny Setchell, with whom I share a commitment to social justice and critical approaches to health research. An opportunity to evaluate a service providing non-clinical psychosocial support for people from multicultural backgrounds came up, and we thought it was important to ground our evaluation in a rigorous and critical understanding of best practice in this area. Rebecca invited me to co-lead the rapid review with her, and I enthusiastically accepted, seeing it as a valuable opportunity to contribute to work that aligns with my values and interests in diversity and policy-informed research.
What are you reading, listening to, and/or watching right now? (Doesn’t have to be anthropological!)
I have been reading The view from Nowhere, by the philosopher Thomas Nigel. It is a book about subjectivity and objectivity – he argues that pure objectivity is impossible because we are embodied, situated beings. As far as I can tell from what I read so far, the book calls for a balance between subjectivity and (inherently limited) objectivity.
If there was one takeaway or action point you hope people will get from your work, what would it be?
It would be great if researchers and practitioners working in non-clinical psychosocial support for people from multicultural backgrounds to move beyond eurocentrism and individualistic understandings and approaches to mental ill-health, and instead adopt approaches that are grounded in an understanding of social, cultural, structural, historical and political contexts.
The next few months we’ll be highlighting authors who have published in Culture, Medicine, and Psychiatry.
Editor, Hans Reitzels Forlag; Part-time Lecturer and Researcher, Roskilde University; Visiting Scholar, Vrije Universiteit Brussels
Agnes Ringer, is a clinical psychologist and interdisciplinary mental health researcher. She works as an editor in psychology and lectures part-time at Roskilde University. Her work centers on psychiatric practice, recovery, and the social dimensions of mental distress. Currently, she is a visiting scholar in Vrije Universiteit, Brussels.
This article explores how the body becomes a site of tension and meaning in the process of recovery from eating disorders. Drawing on interviews with participants in a group therapy program, my co-authors, Mari Holen and Anne Mia Steno, and I show that recovery is not just about changing eating behavior or mindset—but about navigating how the body is viewed, judged, and experienced. We use theoretical perspectives from Sarah Ahmed and Analu Verbin to examine how bodies are shaped through social space and cultural paradoxes. The article introduces the concept of the ‘troublesome body’ to highlight how participants simultaneously seek and resist visibility, control and surrender, and how their agency emerges through collective spaces like group therapy.
Tell us a little bit about yourself and your research interests.
I’m trained as a clinical psychologist and hold a PhD in interdisciplinary mental health. My research focuses on psychiatric institutions, recovery, and how mental distress is shaped by and expressed within social and institutional contexts. I’m especially interested in how people respond to adversity—not as passive victims, but as meaning-making agents who navigate their lives with dignity. My work draws on psychological, sociological, and anthropological perspectives.
What drew you to this project?
The project grew out of my experience working in a clinic for eating disorders that used group-based, narrative, and systemic therapy. I was struck by how transformative the group process was, and how central the body became in participants’ stories. While my co-authors and I set out to explore social aspects of recovery, we discovered that recovery was deeply entangled with how participants experienced and navigated their bodies.
What are you reading, listening to, and/or watching right now? (Doesn’t have to be anthropological!)
Right now, I’m re-reading Agnes’s Jacket: A Psychologist’s Search for the Meanings of Madness by Gail A. Hornstein. It’s a powerful exploration of first-person narratives in mental health and what they can teach us about experience beyond diagnosis. I’m also watching Hacks—a smart, sharp comedy that explores vulnerability, creativity, and power dynamics.
If there was one takeaway or action point you hope people will get from your work, what would it be?
That recovery from eating disorders is not a linear, individual journey. It’s deeply social, relational, and shaped by the environments we inhabit. We need spaces where people can explore their paradoxes, be seen without judgment, and co-create new meanings together.
The next few months we’ll be highlighting authors who have published in Culture, Medicine, and Psychiatry.
Associate Professor, Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest
My research deals with various topics in critical theory including political culture and mental disorders in late modernity. My work has appeared in such venues as The Sociological Review, Theory, Culture & Society, European Journal of Social Theory, Thesis Eleven, Journal of Mental Health. Most recent books: Empty suffering (Routledge 2021) Salvaging modernity (Brill 2025).
The article explores the psychopathological and sociological discourses surrounding the contested notion of burnout, with the aim of reintroducing it as a ‘translator category’. Such concepts, which can translate between everyday language, medical language and critical language, are particularly important in cases which originate from both individual and social causes. Without these translator categories, biomedical and psychopathological interpretations veil the social components of suffering – therefore, inevitably mistreat it as an exclusively individual problem. Furthermore, attempts at social critique also remain inaccessible because they rely on their own set of diagnostic concepts (such as alienation), while lay actors interpret their suffering as an illness or mental disorder (such as depression). To avoid these dead ends, the article discusses how burnout as a translator category can link the discourses of alienation (as a cause of burnout) and depression (as a consequence of burnout) while remaining accessible as a lay category.
Tell us a little bit about yourself and your research interests.
I was trained as a sociologist and philosopher in post-socialist Hungary. Initially, my research focused on democratic transition, particularly its phenomenological features. Since 2010, however, my attention has shifted from the criteria of democratic culture to the personal consequences of failed democratization. This led me to explore the links between social suffering and mental health issues, a topic which has become my main area of expertise over the last decade.
What drew you to this project?
After exploring several clinical categories (e.g. depression, anxiety, addiction) from a critical theoretical-phenomenological perspective (see my book Empty Suffering) I became interested in a phenomenon located at the intersection of biomedical and lay discourses. This is how I found the topic of burnout, which is contested within the biomedical discourses, while being widely applied by the lay actors at the same time.
What are you reading, listening to, and/or watching right now? (Doesn’t have to be anthropological!)
I enjoy reading novels, viewing them not just as an excellent way to relax, but also as a constant source of inspiration for my social scientific work. As well as the better-known classics by authors such as Balzac and Dostoevsky, and contemporaries such as Ali Smith and Kazuo Ishiguro, I also enjoy the vivid Central European literary scene (authors such as Péter Nádas and Mircea Cărtărescu).
If there was one takeaway or action point you hope people will get from your work, what would it be?
Most mental health conditions are inextricably linked to social dysfunction and structural distortion. If we do not address the ‘social pathologies of contemporary civilization’ (that is also the name of a research network I am currently involved in: https://socialpath.org/), there is little hope of stopping the ‘epidemics’ of depression and burnout.
The next few months we’ll be highlighting authors who have published in Culture, Medicine, and Psychiatry.
Nader Abazari holds a PhD in clinical psychology. Currently, as a post-doctoral researcher, he explores ways to enhance existential well-being through interdisciplinary approaches. He is particularly interested in how cultural context contributes to the fundamental human need to quest for meaning in life.
Existential well-being research group, University of Eastern Finland
Everyone, at some point, faces the question: What makes life worth living? Psychologists address this through the concept of “meaning in life.” As meaning is not automatically given, we must actively create it. While this is a deeply personal process, it is also shaped by the cultural context in which we live. In addition, anthropologists view myths as the essence of the cultures from which they emerge. This led us to ask: Do myths contain clues for meaning-making that remain useful today? To explore this, we compared three psychological theories with examples from world myths. Our analysis shows that mythological narratives, aligned with contemporary theories, provide valuable insights into the meaning-making process: encountering a profoundly impactful event, dissatisfaction with the current state, meaning-making attempts, and providing a vision of desired state. Thus, we conclude that myths remain relevant to enduring human concerns, guiding reflection on meaning in contemporary life.
Tell us a little bit about yourself and your research interests.
Previously, I worked as a psychologist focusing on improving the well-being of individuals with chronic conditions. As a postdoctoral researcher, I found the perfect opportunity to pursue my interest in a particular dimension of well-being, existential well-being. Within this field, I am especially fascinated by sources of meaning, the avenues people draw upon to see their lives as meaningful. These sources range widely, from spirituality, love, and unison with nature to religion, ritual, achievement, freedom and more. What intrigues me most is how people seem to choose their sources of meaning from a kind of “menu” offered by their cultural context. For instance, in Finland, with its striking and abundant natural landscapes, people’s lives are deeply intertwined with nature, and unison with nature often becomes a particularly valued source of meaning. In other countries, however, we may find that sources such as religiosity and spirituality are more prominent. Currently, under the supervision of Associate Professor Suvi-Maria Saarelainen, I am exploring how culture shapes sources of meaning, with myths, as cultural showcases, forming a central part of our research.
What drew you to this project?
In answering this question, I am reminded of Isaac Newton’s famous words: “If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.” We believe this perspective extends far beyond the academic world; it also applies to everyday life. In the context of meaning in life, these “giants” are the tangible and intangible cultural heritage passed down through generations. Our project was inspired by the idea that just as personal human history can provide insights into how to find meaning in life, collective human history also has the potential to show how our ancestors found meaning in their lives. We sought to take an initial step in showing that the meaning-making practices of the past may still resonate and continue to shape the ways people seek meaning today.
What are you reading, listening to, and/or watching right now? (Doesn’t have to be anthropological!)
Lately, I have been drawn to books that build bridges between human psychological processes, culture, and history. Two that stand out for me are The Cultural Animal by Roy F. Baumeister and The Cry for Myth by Rollo May. I also enjoy podcasts on world history and the biographies of influential figures from diverse fields. For me, history offers a process-oriented, holistic perspective for understanding human issues, and helps me avoid the trap of tunnel vision.
If there was one takeaway or action point you hope people will get from your work, what would it be?
I would say that myths are not just stories of the past, they are lived and culturally validated roadmaps for a meaningful life. They remind us that the visions for a better life that once guided our ancestors can still, at least at times, inspire and shape our own search for meaning today.
The next few months we’ll be highlighting authors who have published in Culture, Medicine, and Psychiatry.
PhD candidate, Freie Universität Berlin
Florin Cristea is a PhD candidate in psychological and medical anthropology at the Freie Universität Berlin. His research focuses on understanding the moral world of people diagnosed with severe psychiatric disorders. In his work, he engaged with the social and clinical life worlds of people with a lived experience of psychiatric encounters in Romania, Tanzania, and Indonesia.
Suffering has long been a central theme in anthropology. Yet, despite growing interest in psychology and psychiatry, anthropological engagement with mental or emotional pain (as stand-alone concepts) has remained limited. In my article, based on fieldwork in Indonesia on severe psychiatric disorders, I tried to understand the impact of mental pain on the person experiencing it and their immediate environment. I first outlined the salient attributes of mental pain as they emerged during my conversations with patients and observations of their everyday lives. I then suggested that these attributes contributed to the uncertainties individuals faced as part of their experiences with severe psychiatric disorders. Finally, my main argument was that the interplay between mental pain and uncertainties informed certain illness behaviors, particularly tendencies toward self-isolation.
Tell us a little bit about yourself and your research interests.
I am interested in the anthropology of mental health and illness, as well as in Global Health and Global Mental Health. I am fascinated by how different knowledge worlds come together and influence people’s understanding of what it means to be healthy, sick, and ultimately human. While my work has been strongly influenced by critical medical and psychological anthropology, I try to maintain an open engagement with the psy and biomedical sciences and seek venues of mutual understanding and collaboration.
What drew you to this project?
I initially was drawn to alternative understandings of the mind in Indonesia. However, mapping out these understandings proved far more complex than I had anticipated. Addressing mental pain was my way of making sense of the muddle that became my data.
What are you reading, listening to, and/or watching right now? (Doesn’t have to be anthropological!)
A friend recently recommended “Lightseekers” by Femi Kayode, and I am looking forward to reading it on my upcoming vacation. I am grateful to have time to enjoy something completely unrelated to work.
If there was one takeaway or action point you hope people will get from your work, what would it be?
Isolation of people diagnosed with a severe psychiatric disorder is a fairly common problem, irrespective of where it occurs. It is important to note or to reiterate that isolation is not only the result of social attitudes toward mental illnesses, nor is it an individual issue. It is part and parcel of the intersubjective nature of the encounter between the social and the individual. We need to do better in understanding this relationship.
The next few months we’ll be highlighting authors who have published in Culture, Medicine, and Psychiatry.
PhD, Department of Anthropology, Aarhus University, Denmark
Gitte holds a PhD in medical anthropology and is a former psychiatric nurse. Her research concerns mental health and family life and explores connections between time and ADHD from an everyday family perspective. She draws on long-term fieldwork conducted in Danish families.
Co-written with Per Hove Thomsen, Sanne Lemcke, and Rikke Sand Andersen, this paper explores cases where interlocutors make use of space—such as a truck, a horse stable, or a space capsule/flat—as a strategy for balancing ADHD symptoms. Methodologically, the article draws on Stevenson´s concept “imagistic thinking” as a way to approach creative sides of managing ADHD. The main contribution of the paper is the concept of “own-time spaces”: personal spaces driven by dreams and desires and characterized by rhythm. In own-time spaces, ADHD symptoms fade into the background. The article adds to the existing understanding of shielding as a pedagogical strategy in coping with ADHD. Own-time spaces are more than concrete shields; they are personal, dynamic, and imagistic spaces that reflect a lifetime perspective, such as for example childhood dreams. Put simply, attending to own-time spaces is a strategy for regulating ADHD-experiences and thereby reduce ADHD symptoms
Tell us a little bit about yourself and your research interests.
As both a medical anthropologist and psychiatric nurse, I seek to explore the entanglements between biological and social experiences and explanations of living with ADHD. I approach this through the lens of time. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork and conceptualizing ADHD as a bio-chrono-social condition, my research unfolds the temporal entanglements of ADHD in bodies and families.
What drew you to this project?
A concrete empirical case kickstarted the idea of writing this article. I have known Kenny for 15 years, first as my patient, and now as a research participant. Kenny is diagnosed with a severe degree of ADHD and has always been obsessed with trucks. Ever since he was a kid, he told me that his ADHD disappears when he is in a truck. Now, when an adult, the same counts; he still tells me that his ADHD disappears when he drives his truck. Kenny´s experiences of ADHD as a condition that fluctuates contrasted with my primary understanding of ADHD a highly biological condition. This contradiction has been my main motivation to write this article. I invited a team of cross-disciplinary co-authors from anthropology and psychiatry because I wanted the article to explore this mystery in the broadest possible sense
What are you reading, listening to, and/or watching right now? (Doesn’t have to be anthropological!)
I defended my PhD dissertation three weeks ago, so right now I’m enjoying some downtime by watching a popular Netflix series called Sirenes.
If there was one takeaway or action point you hope people will get from your work, what would it be?
One key takeaway is that ADHD is a dynamic condition deeply entangled with time and space. People actively engage in various forms of ‘time-work’ to manage their experiences and symptoms. Recognizing these strategies can help us better understand ADHD beyond purely biomedical or social constructionist frameworks.
The next few months we’ll be highlighting authors who have published in Culture, Medicine, and Psychiatry.
Professor, Department of Humanistic Studies, Universidad Técnica Federico Santa María, Santiago, Chile. Associate researcher, Transdisciplinary Laboratory on Social Practices and Subjectivity (LaPSoS), Faculty of Social Sciences, Universidad de Chile. External member, Medical Anthropology Research Center (MARC), Universitat Rovira i Virgili, España
Ángela Cifuentes is a transdisciplinary researcher, clinical psychologist and psychoanalyst, holding PhDs in Social Sciences and in Medical Anthropology and Global Health. In recent years, she has focused on exploring experiences of anxiety, forms of affectation, and mental health care practices in contemporary Chilean universities shaped by neoliberal logic.
In this article, I explore how mental health problems are experienced and named in Chilean universities, especially in contexts marked by competition, performance, and inequality. Based on interviews I conducted with students and mental health professionals across three types of institutions, I analyze the everyday uses of diagnoses like “anxiety” and “depression.” I show that, both for students and for professionals, these diagnoses do not necessarily reflect clinical illnesses but often serve as ways of naming forms of distress tied to the demands of academic life. In many cases, they allow students to access institutional support or justify difficult decisions, such as taking a break or changing degrees. I argue that these diagnostic uses are also affective negotiations in response to pressures of academic performance and social adjustment, and they open space for imagining alternatives in the face of failure. Mental health in the university thus emerges as a complex, contested, and constantly shifting field.
Tell us a little bit about yourself and your research interests.
My experience as a clinical psychologist and psychoanalyst in various public and private mental health institutions has shaped a critical lens on experiences of suffering, affects, and the modes of management and care within institutions, leading me to focus on their political, cultural, and socio-historical dimensions. I am interested in generating knowledge that enables a deeper understanding of complex phenomena and contributes to social transformation. Currently, I am particularly interested in continuing research on university mental health, especially how global mental health discourses are locally reconfigured in Chilean universities in the post-pandemic context, exploring the affects, interdependencies, and technical mediations that shape students’ everyday care practices.
What drew you to this project?
The article is based on part of the findings from my doctoral research. Initially, the project aimed to study so-called ‘anxiety disorders’ in the context of public health in Chile. However, during the course of my doctoral studies, various expressions of distress erupted in Chilean universities: first, in May 2018, feminist protests against abuse and gender-based violence within universities; and then, in April 2019 (just a few months before the ‘chilean social uprising’), protests demanding greater access to mental health treatment services in universities. In those protests, student banners—echoed in the title of my article—declared that ‘at university we live anxiety and de-pression.’ This shifted my attention toward the use of mental health language in expressions of discontent, the institutional management of anxious affects, and its relationship to performance demands in universities.
What are you reading, listening to, and/or watching right now? (Doesn’t have to be anthropological!)
This year, I’ve immersed myself in the work of Ursula K. Le Guin, fascinated by her ability to imagine alternative forms of life, relationships, and vital persistence. Her literature has become a source of inspiration for rethinking research as a political gesture. After reading several of her science fiction novels, I’ve now begun reading the fantasy saga “The Earthsea Cycle” with my daughter. Musically, I tend to move between very different registers — from dense, dark sounds to fusions that open up to something more hopeful. Lately, while working, I’ve been listening a lot to Tigran Hamasyan, an Armenian jazz pianist whose music helps me stay grounded and focused. On screen, I’m watching the final season of “The Handmaid’s Tale”.
If there was one takeaway or action point you hope people will get from your work, what would it be?
The main conclusion I aim to convey through my work is that mental health in university settings cannot be understood or addressed solely through reductionist and biomedical perspectives—nor can it be fully captured by interpretations that frame it exclusively as a form of inescapable social control. My research shows that while diagnoses and expressions of distress often involve individualized uses, they also function as affective languages and negotiation strategies in response to the demands of neoliberal academia. The key takeaway I propose is to rethink university mental health as a situated, collective, and political issue that reflects structural forms of exclusion, precarity, and inequality. It is urgent that public policies and institutional interventions acknowledge this pragmatic-political dimension of diagnoses, and move toward co-constructed strategies that do not reduce the complexity of student suffering to the private or clinical realm, but instead open up spaces for listening, recognition, and transformation of the structural conditions that produce it.
The next few months we’ll be highlighting authors who have published in Culture, Medicine, and Psychiatry.
Assistant Professor, Nanyang Technological University; Postdoctoral Affiliate, University of Oxford
I am a medical anthropologist and sociologist. My work explores the intricacies of health and medicine in the Asia-Pacific, focusing on how people care for each other and how these practices intersect with medical and social service systems.
Child protection systems around the world utilize mental health professionals to conduct assessments and provide children with therapeutic care. Japan is no exception. But thinking about child welfare and mental health cross-culturally helps us appreciate the social side of practices that are commonly seen as (or hoped to be) objective, technical, and universal. My article details how clinical psychologist Yuri learned how to use art therapy to improve her professional work with abused or neglected children. Yuri’s story inadvertently dug up her own painful memories. Her return to childhood through art therapy unsettled her worldview: was her clinical work actually for the children, or was it just for herself? Yet, Yuri renewed her sense of clinical will. Cathartic resolutions of distress may help care practitioners develop empathy and become better carers. This is how Yuri thought art therapy was innovative for mental health care.
Tell us a little bit about yourself and your research interests.
While I am originally from a small, rural town in the Northwestern U.S., my research training has taken me across the world, from Hawai‘i and Japan to the U.K. and Thailand. My experiences in these places shape my interests in how people think about and enact care—and the lived realities of how caregiving plays out.
What drew you to this project?
I always find myself drawn to the ‘in-between’ things, especially in medicine and culture. Child protection does not immediately bring things like clinics and hospitals to mind, but it is a critically important arena where decisions and actions have dire consequences for one’s health and well-being. Japan’s child protection system has been undergoing significant reform throughout the past decade, providing an even more complicated space to think about care and culture.
What are you reading, listening to, and/or watching right now? (Doesn’t have to be anthropological!)
While I am reading (and re-reading) chapters from my in-progress book, I also recently started re-reading the Expanse series by James S. A. Corey. It is a fun hobby, but for my work, it is also helpful in seeing how writers in other genres craft an argument, describe social life, and present information to the reader.
If there was one takeaway or action point you hope people will get from your work, what would it be?
I cannot stress enough the value of strong and long-term relationships in ethnographic work. Yuri’s story was not a single moment, but conversations at the office, meetings in the therapy room, and chats in coffee shops over a year. I learned some of the most moving parts of her life quite late into my fieldwork. It can take time to appreciate another person’s life, but taking small steps toward making a person feel wanted can go a long way in building a rewarding connection (like inviting someone to a cup of coffee/tea).
Culture, Medicine, and Psychiatry 