Inverting the deficit model in global mental health: An examination of strengths and assets of community mental health care in Ghana, India, Occupied Palestinian territories, and South Africa.

Global mental health [GMH] scholarship and practice has typically focused on the unmet needs and barriers to mental health in communities, developing biomedical and psychosocial interventions for integration into formal health care platforms in response. In this article, we analyse four diverse settings to disrupt the emphasises on health system weaknesses, treatment gaps and barriers which can perpetuate harmful hierarchies and colonial and medical assumptions, or a 'deficit model'. We draw on the experiential knowledge of community mental health practitioners and researchers working in Ghana, India, the Occupied Palestinian Territory and South Africa to describe key assets existing in 'informal' community mental health care systems and how these are shaped by socio-political contexts.

'We are all working toward one goal. We want people to become well': A visual exploration of what promotes successful collaboration between community mental health workers and healers in Ghana.

The practices of traditional and faith-based healers in low- and middle-income countries in Africa and elsewhere have come under intense scrutiny in recent years owing to allegations of human rights abuses. To mitigate these, there have been calls to develop collaborations between healers and formal health services to optimise available mental health interventions in poorly resourced contexts. For various reasons, attempts to establish such partnerships in a sustainable manner in different countries have not always been successful.

Exploring the Use of Antibiotics for Dental Patients in a Middle-Income Country: Interviews with Clinicians in Two Ghanaian Hospitals.

Background: Antimicrobial resistance is a global problem driven by the overuse of antibiotics. Dentists are responsible for about 10% of antibiotics usage across healthcare worldwide. Factors influencing dental antibiotic prescribing are numerous, with some differences in low- and middle-income countries compared with high-income countries.

The hermeneutics of recovery: Facilitating dialogue between African and Western mental health frameworks.

The widespread use of faith-based and traditional healing for mental disorders within African contexts is well known. However, normative responses tend to fall within two camps: on one hand, those oriented towards the biomedical model of psychiatry stress the abuses and superstition of such healing, whilst critics adopting a more 'local' perspective have fundamentally challenged the universalist claims of biomedical diagnostic categories and psychiatric treatments. What seemingly emerges is a dichotomy between those who endorse more 'universalist' or 'relativist' approaches as an analytical lens to the challenges of the diverse healing strands within African contexts.

Indigenous and faith healing in Ghana: A brief examination of the formalising process and collaborative efforts with the biomedical health system.

Background: Health seeking in many African countries typically involves making use of multiple healing systems, including indigenous and faith systems, as well as biomedical healthcare systems. These different systems have co-existed for many years in Africa, including in Ghana.

Aim: In this article, we examine the formalising processes that non-biomedical healthcare in Ghana has undergone in postcolonial times.

Indigenous and faith healing for mental health in Ghana: An examination of the literature on reported beliefs, practices and use of alternative mental health care in Ghana.

Background: For many people in African countries, various forms of health care are utilised for the treatment of illness. This pluralistic nature of health seeking includes the use of indigenous, faith and allopathic medicines for care.

Aim: In this article, our aim was to gain insight into the existing knowledge on indigenous and faith healing in Ghana, with a particular focus on mental health care.

Traditional herbalists' methods of treating mental disorders in Ghana.

The use of traditional medicine for the treatment of various disorders is not a new practice. Indeed, various categories of traditional healers form a large part of the healthcare workforce in many low- and middle-income countries, and given the paucity of mental health professionals in these countries, traditional and complementary medicine practitioners are utilised even more so for mental disorders. In Ghana, efforts have been made to formalise and standardise the work of traditional medicine practitioners.

'The threads in his mind have torn': conceptualization and treatment of mental disorders by neo-prophetic Christian healers in Accra, Ghana.

Background: In many low- and middle-income countries, faith healing is used alongside biomedical treatment for many health problems including mental disorders. Further, Christianity in Africa has seen much transformation in recent decades with the growth of charismatic or neo-prophetic churches whose doctrines include healing, miracles and prophecies. As such, many charismatic pastors have been engaged in faith healing for many years.

Ghanaian traditional and faith healers' explanatory models of intellectual disability.

Background: The use of traditional/alternative medicine for health care in Africa has been examined for various conditions. However, there is limited research about traditional/alternative health care for intellectual disability. The present authors explored the explanatory models (EMs) of intellectual disability held by traditional/faith healers in Ghana.

Muslim Traditional Healers in Accra, Ghana: Beliefs About and Treatment of Mental Disorders.

Traditional and faith healing is a common practice in many low- and middle-income countries due to resource limitations and belief systems, particularly for disorders such as mental disorders. We report on the beliefs about mental illness from the perspective of one category of alternative healers in Ghana-the Muslim faith healers. We also report on their methods of diagnoses and treatment for mental disorders.

Ghanaian traditional and faith healers' explanatory models for epilepsy.

Epilepsy is the most common neurological condition in sub-Saharan Africa. A significant number of people with epilepsy in low- and middle-income countries do not receive formal biomedical care. They utilize the services of various traditional and alternative medicine practitioners.

Implications of healing power and positioning for collaboration between formal mental health services and traditional/alternative medicine: the case of Ghana.

Background: Many current debates about global mental health have increasingly called for collaboration between biomedical and traditional medical health systems. Despite these calls, not much has been written about the variables that would influence such collaboration. To a large extent, collaboration dialogues have considered biomedicine on the one hand, and a wide range of traditional and faith-based treatments on the other hand.

'That is how the real mad people behave': Beliefs about and treatment of mental disorders by traditional medicine-men in Accra, Ghana.

Background: Traditional healing methods are considered central to mental health care in low-income countries such as Ghana, because they are perceived to be more easily accessible, more affordable and generally ascribe similar causal beliefs to those of the patients. However, not much is known about the work of traditional healers largely because their methods are shrouded in mysticism and secrecy. There is a need to understand the ideology and beliefs of traditional healers surrounding mental disorders, including knowledge about their practices in mental health care.

Challenges in the use of the mental health information system in a resource-limited setting: lessons from Ghana.

Background: One of the most successful modes of record-keeping and data collection is the use of health management information systems, where patient information and management plans are uniformly entered into a database to streamline the information and for ease of further patient management. For mental healthcare, a Mental Health Information System (MHIS) has been found most successful since a properly established and operational MHIS is helpful for developing equitable and appropriate mental health care systems. Until 2010, the system of keeping patient records and information in the Accra Psychiatric Hospital of Ghana was old and outdated.

Their Hands Have Lost Their Bones: Exploring Cultural Scripts in Two West African Affect Lexica.

Previous research has indicated the importance of embodiment in West African emotion lexica. The current study aims to explore the pervasiveness of this cultural script through the analysis of the emotional lexica of two West African languages (Ga and Ewe) from Southern Ghana that have been featured minimally in previous emotion research. The analysis indicated that embodiment was an important cultural script in both affective lexica.