Psychoanalysis in an Age of Accelerating Cultural Change

Psychoanalysis in an Age of Accelerating Cultural Change: Spiritual Globalization addresses the current status of mental health work in the public and private sectors. The careful, thorough, approach to the individual person characteristic of psychoanalysis is mostly the province of an affluent few. Meanwhile, community-based mental health treatment, given shrinking budgets, tends to emphasize medication and short-term therapies. In an increasingly diverse society, considerations of culture in mental health treatment are given short shrift, despite obligatory nods to cultural competence. The field of mental health has suffered from the mutual isolation of psychoanalysis, community-based clinical work, and cultural studies. Here, Neil Altman shows how these areas of study and practice require and enrich each other - the field of psychoanalysis benefits by engaging marginalized communities; community-based clinical work benefits from psychoanalytic concepts, while all forms of clinical work benefit from awareness of culture. Including reports of clinical experiences and programmatic developments from around the world, its international scope explores the operation of culture and cultural differences in conceptions of mental health. In addition the book addresses the origin and treatment of mental illness, from notions of spirit possession treated by shamans, to conceptions of psychic trauma, to biological understandings and pharmacological treatments. In the background of this discussion is globalization, the impact of which is tracked in terms of its psychological effects on people, as well as on the resources and programs available to provide psychological care around the world. As a unique examination of current mental health work, this book will appeal to psychoanalysts, psychotherapists, community-based mental health workers, and students in Cultural Studies. Neil Altman is a psychoanalytic psychologist, Visiting Professor at Ambedkar University of Delhi, India, and faculty and supervisor at the William Alanson White Institute. He is an Honorary Member of the William Alanson White Society and Editor Emeritus of Psychoanalytic Dialogues. Author of The Analyst in the Inner City: Race, Class, and Culture through a Psychoanalytic Lens (Routledge, 2nd edition, 2010)

Neil Altman is a psychoanalytic psychologist, Visiting Professor at Ambedkar University of Delhi, India, and faculty and supervisor at the William Alanson White Institute. He is an Honorary Member of the William Alanson White Society and Editor Emeritus of Psychoanalytic Dialogues. Dr. Altman is also the author of The Analyst in the Inner City: Race, Class, and Culture through a Psychoanalytic Lens, Second Edition, published by Routledge in 2009.

PREFACE, INTRODUCTION: PSYCHOANALYSIS, COMMUNITY-BASED CLINICAL WORK, CULTURE, PSYCHOANALYSIS AND CULTURE, Psychoanalysis suffers from elitism and isolation, The culture of psychoanalysis reflects the cultures of psychoanalysts. The significance of locating psychoanalysis culturally, Culture in psychoanalytic clinical work PSYCHOANALYSIS AND COMMUNITY BASED CLINICAL WORK, Some Background about community based clinical work, "Evidence Based" manualized treatment, The psychoanalytic notion of countertransference is essential in community-based clinical work. A Psychoanalytic perspective can be useful in non-clinical community-based work. CULTURE AND COMMUNITY BASED, PSYCHOANALYSIS, COMMUNITY BASED CLINICAL WORK AND CULTURE: THE THREE IN INTERACTION, Forms of healing: spirit possession, summoning of spirits, exorcism, A visit to the Nizamuddin Mosque in New Delhi, Spirit possession in India and around the world, Spiritual and psychological models, From Spirit Possession to Psychoanalysis: From Community-Based Healing to Office-Based Healing, CLINICAL WORK IN COMMUNITIES, Psychotherapy, In, Out of, and Around the Office, Training in Hospitals, Giving and taking in community-based work. Primary and Secondary Prevention Mental Health Programs: Psychoanalytically Informed Community Intervention, Pitfalls of Community Mental Health Programs without consideration of race, social class and culture, Whiteness, Hierarchy, and Linear Developmental Models, The analytic abuela, Therapist working in Schools. Hospital Based Therapists, Sangath: the work of Vikram Patel and his collaborators, consultants in community agencies, 7 Globalization and Mental Health. Some background, What's in a word? History, Globalization and mental health, Mental health systems in the age of global capitalism: commodification and objectification of human beings. Commodification of Psychotherapy, Linear currents, non-linear dynamics, Psychotherapy outside capitalism? Social/Political Implications, The Commodification of mindfulness, Mental health systems in the context of global capitalism, Portugal, The United States, Conclusion and Prospects. REFERENCES