Global Mental Health is a field of research and practice that aims to improve mental health through the prevention, care and treatment of mental disorders and to promote equity and an interdisciplinary approach. The field has been the object of much critique, including narratives of postcolonialism, the reduction of social determinants of ill mental health to individualized psychological problems, and questions about the appropriateness of ‘western’ models of intervention in cross-cultural settings. In this seminar, Dr Sarah Marks will discuss these critiques and shed light on the agency and experiences of local clinical actors in Ghana and Zimbabwe, showing how interventions based on cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) have a longer tradition than is usually assumed. Practitioners in these settings have often chosen these approaches because of the possibility of integrating them with indigenous understandings of mental distress.
The seminar will also discuss these approaches in a transnational context, especially how Ghanaian and Zimbabwean clinicians draw upon their international training and participation in wider global health networks to reframe local practices in a way that is congruent with traditional understandings of Global Mental Health.
Please note that the seminar will be held in English and will not be streamed online.
About Sarah Marks
Dr Sarah Marks is a Senior Lecturer in Modern History and UKRI Future Leaders Fellow at the Department of History, Classics and Archaeology at Birkbeck University of London. She is also the Founding Director of the Birkbeck Centre for Interdisciplinary Research on Mental Health. Sarah Marks researches the history of science, medicine and technology - particularly the psychological disciplines and mental health - from the Cold War to the present, from a transnational and comparative perspective. She was awarded her PhD from University College London in 2015, and held a research fellowship at Murray Edwards College, University of Cambridge, before joining Birkbeck in October 2016.
Sarah is an Editor for the interdisciplinary journal History of the Human Sciences and an advisory board member for the Czech Journal of Contemporary History. Her research has been taken up by the WHO Regional Office in Europe, BBC Radio, The Wellcome Collection, and the British Psychological Society.
About this seminar series
“Global Health Unpacked” is a seminar series that aims to bring together the global health community on a regular basis to critically discuss key debates in Global Health in informal and interactive seminars. Guest speakers (both from the University of Oslo and from other universities) will bring an original perspective to the topic and engage in a conversation with the audience.
With this seminar, we also hope to facilitate exchanges and collaborations between global health researchers and students present in Oslo and foster interdisciplinary research. “Global Health Unpacked” is jointly organized by the research group Global Health Politics, Centre for Development and the Environment and the UiO Centre for Global Health.