Mental Health Care In Africa

Despite the fact that more than 80 per cent of mental health care users make use of African indigenous practitioners, previous texts on mental health care in Africa have focused predominantly on sharpening Western-based competence, while paying scant attention to local African practices. A more holistic view is needed to reconnect mental health practitioners with the African community where value systems are rooted and transmitted, and thus allow them to provide better care.

Mental health care in Africa is an evidence-based practice and research book focusing equally on Western and African indigenous mental health care practices so that the best can be taken from both. Mental health care in Africa starts to exert the African epistemology and ways of practice, without undermining the contribution of Western health care.

Including African indigenous knowledge systems (AIKS) allows for broader dialogue and encourages original debate on concepts such as self-determination, informed consent, appropriate and relevant assessment, and care in the mental health arena. Contents include the following: Review of Western psychoeducation and findings in the African indigenous context; Planning and conducting therapeutic groups; Therapeutic interaction in HIV and AIDS care: an African approach; Management of aggressive and violent mental health care users; Sensory stimulation in mental health care users with dementia; Medicinal management; Substance rehabilitation and primary mental health care.

Mental health care in Africa is aimed at mental health care practitioners and undergraduate students at universities and nursing colleges.