Culture and Madness

Begum Maitra is a Child Psychiatrist in private practice, an independent expert in public and private law cases involving children and an adult psychotherapist. She trained as a psychiatrist in India and worked for many years as a Consultant child psychiatrist in the British National Health Service in inner city London. She specialises in the role of culture as it relates to the assessment of children and families, particularly of risk, in individual therapy, and through workshops, lectures and conferences for voluntary and statutory organisations. Inga-Britt Krause is Training and Development Consultant with special reference to race and equity at the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust where she also works as a Consultant Systemic Psychotherapist in a Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service. She first trained as a Social Anthropologist at the London School of Economics and Political Science and teaches widely, nationally and internationally, on the subject of social science and psychotherapy and about the place of culture and race in clinical practice and theory.

This is a most remarkable and useful book - most instructive and readable. It offers a complete engagement with its subject matter through reading but also watching and hearing (of the accompanying film). Written with competence, in an accessible and respectful way, it offers unique insights into the complexities of culture and mental illness. Despite its focus on the current UK realities, its value transcends these boundaries. In the plethora of literature that tends either to trivialise these themes with slogans or obscure them with academic obfuscation, this book stands out with its soundness, participatory learning and clarity. It has all the qualities of becoming a classic.

• Authors' Note. Acknowledgements. Foreword. 1. Introduction. 2. Observing and Interpreting. 3. Person, Selves and Identity. 4. The Idea of Community. 5. What is Culture, Anyway? 6. Fear and Madness. 7. Belief, Faith and Religion. 8. What Makes Families? 9. The Idea of Childhood. 10. Bodies and Things. 11. Health and Illness. 12. Individuals and Institutions. 13. Conclusions. Appendix I: How the Film Was Made. Appendix II: Glossary. References. Suggested Reading.