Anthropology and psychology share a long history of rivalry, collaboration, and mutual disregard. This volume reconsiders psychology as a field of anthropological enquiry. In doing so, it takes an ethnographic approach to psychology, examining psychotherapeutic practices and models of mental health at the heart of psy. Featuring ethnographic studies of psychological therapies, subjects, and professionals, the book also suggests what an anthropological voice can offer to improve psychological healthcare. At the cutting edge of ethnographic research, this book brings together studies from the Global North and Global South, showing how psychological realities shape our understandings of what it means to be human.
Recenzijos
This is an excellent book. It deals with a timely and important issue in a sensitive manner. Keir Martin, University of Oslo
Acknowledgements
Illustrations
Introduction: Thinking Ethnographically about Psychology
Mikkel Kenni Bruun
Chapter
1. Mixing Treatment Modalities: An Ethnography of Mental Healthcare
Bricolage in Canada
Dina Bork
Chapter
2. Treating Patients Who Dont Speak: The Challenge of Treating
Children with Eating Disorders in a Residential Facility in Italy
Giulia Sciolli
Chapter
3. More Likely Psychological? Exploring Mental Troubles and
Psychology in Ouagadougou
Annigje van Dijk
Chapter
4. When the Counsellors Give: Material Support and Therapeutic
Agency in State-Based Psychological Counselling Services in Sri Lanka
Nadia Augustyniak
Chapter
5. In (the) Practice: Pioneering Psychotherapy in Uganda
Julia Vorhölter
Chapter
6. Throwing Out the Psyche: Scientific Persuasions in British
Psychotherapy
Mikkel Kenni Bruun
Chapter
7. Encoding Wellness: On Cultures of Risk when Building Digital
Mental Wellb-Being Apps
Jennifer Cearns
Afterword: An Anthropology of Psychology in the Twenty-First Century
Keir Martin
Index
Mikkel Kenni Bruun is an Affiliated Lecturer at the University of Cambridge and Research Associate at Kings College London. He is the co-editor of Rhythm and Vigilance: Ethnographies of Surveillance and Time (Bristol University Press, 2025).
