Based on two decades of research in Brazil and the UK, this book explores the ways in which intersections of gender, race and class affect the positioning of the subject as 'Other' in discourses of health, and how the positioning of the subject as 'Other' has implications for health research and mental health practice.
Drawing on feminist, post-colonial and decolonial studies, psychoanalysis and discourse analysis, Mental Health and Otherness examines the experiences of immigrants, drug users and transsexual people in health and mental health settings, and the ways in which stereotypical understandings can affect the subject.
This book is a study of the discursive construction of ideas about health and mental health in the West and the awareness of processes of othering in clinical practice. It will appeal to scholars in psychology, sociology and cultural studies with an interest in mental health, health care and intersectionality.
Introduction: on othering processes
Part 1: From theory: laying foundations
1. Framing the Other
1.1. (Re)producing the Other 1.2. Fetishised relations
1.3. Celebrating difference: on otherness and sameness
1.4. Working with intersections
1.5. Encountering the Other
2. Mental health classifications and othering processes: on addiction,
depression and sexual disorders2.1. Women and mental health: on depression
and hysteria
2.2. Immigration, race and mental health: diagnosis and prescription
2.3. Transsexuality and homosexuality: the body and diagnosis 2.4. The
production of drug addiction and minoritised groups
Part 2: To practice: researching mental health
3. Immigration, gender and mental health in England and Brazil3.1.
Immigration processes and mental health in the UK
3.2. Asylum seekers' and refugees' access to health services and mental
health issues3.3. Immigration and health services in Brazil: gender, race and
mental health3.4. Reflections on the Encounter: Decolonising Mental Health
4. Mental health and sexuality: reflections on older travestis and transwomen
in Brazil
4.1. Contextualising Travestis and Trans People in Brazil 4.2. Travestis,
transgender, transsexual women and ageing
4.3. Revisiting history: military Dictatorship, AIDS and immigration
5. Discourses on drug addiction and gender
5.1. Social imaginary of the drug addict
5.2. Social imaginary of women and drugs in Brazil
5.3. Drug policy, gender, sexuality and race
Conclusions: decolonising mental health
Appendix 1: main research projects cited
Appendix 2: list of community organisations assisting the research health
experiences of access to health
Ilana Mountian is a Senior Lecturer in Psychology at the University of the West of England. Member of the School of Psychoanalysis of the Forum of the Lacanian Field and the Discourse Unit. Author of Cultural Ecstasies: Drugs, Gender and the Social Imaginary (Routledge, 2013).
