Interview With Nora S. West

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.

What is your article “Okweraliikirira and Okwenyamira: Idioms of Psychological Distress Among People Living with HIV in Rakai, Uganda” about?

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.

Other places to connect:

Website

Interview With Nathalia Costa

Posted by michellezernick

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.

What is your article “Non-clinical Psychosocial Mental Health Support Programmes for People with Diverse Language and Cultural Backgrounds: A Critical Rapid Review” about?

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.

Other places to connect:

Website

Interview With Agnes Ringer

Posted by michellezernick

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.

What is your article “Troublesome Bodies: How Bodies Come to Matter and Intrude in Eating Disorder Recovery“ about?

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.

Other places to connect:

Website

Interview With Domonkos Sik

Posted by michellezernick

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).

What is your article “Between Depression and Alienation: Burnout as a Translator Category for Critical Theories“ about?

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.

Other places to connect:

Website

Interview With Florin Cristea

Posted by michellezernick

The next few months we’ll be highlighting authors who have published in Culture, Medicine, and Psychiatry.

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.

What is your article “Navigating the Unknown: Mental Pain, Uncertainty, and Self-Isolation in Bali and Java“ about?

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.

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