This discussion guide examines non-western concepts of mental health, specifically from Mozambique and Angola.It looks at the ways in which mental health and illness can be understood outside the framework of western biomedical paradigms.It discusses how mental health is understood by local people,how it relates to war and other social crises,and…[Read more]

Professor Alastair Ager

This paper gives guidance for the planning and implementation of psychosocial programmes as part of development assistance projects. It aims to turn the reader’s attention to the two chief questions involved in such planning:What are we appropriately seeking to achieve? What is the best way of going about this? For…[Read more]

Authors: Dyan Mazurana and Susan McKay
Rights and Democracy, 2004

This study raises our awareness of the ‘militarization of the lives of girls in the fighting forces and the role they play’. As it was necessary to separate women from children in order to ensure that women’s rights were understood to be human rights, it is now necessary to…[Read more]

Short Summary of WHO-UNHCR MHPSS Assessment Toolkit

BruceG.Link and JoC.Phelan

“The stigma concept has been criticized as being too vaguely defined and individually focused. In response to these criticisms, we define stigma as the co-occurrence of its components–labeling, stereotyping, separation, status loss, and discrimination–and further indicate that for stigmatization to occur,power must be…[Read more]