Spiritual and Mental Health Crisis in Globalizing Senegal: A History of Transcultural Psychiatry

by Alice Bullard

Overview

Spiritual and Mental Health Crisis in Globalizing Senegal explores the history of mental health in Senegal, and how psychological difficulties were expressed in the terms of spiritualism, magic, witchcraft, spirit possession, and ancestor worship.

Focused on the effervescent and fruitful early post-colonial years at the Fann Hospital, situated at the famed University of Dakar, Cheikh Anta Diop, this book reveals provocative treatment innovations via case studies of individuals struggling for health and healing, and thus operates as a suspension bridge between scholarship on witchcraft and magic on the one side and the history psychiatry and psychoanalysis on the other.

Through these case studies, this book creates a new route of exchange for healing knowledge for a broad array of West African spiritual troubles, mental illness, magic, soul cannibalism, witchcraft, spirit possession, and psychosis.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781000589023
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	05/18/2022
Series:	Routledge Research in Health and Healing in Africa and the African Diaspora
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	264
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Alice Bullard (Ph.D. & ESQ) is a lawyer specializing in human rights, trafficking, personal status, and mediation. Previously, she was a professor of history at Georgia Institute of Technology, U.S.A

Table of Contents

Introduction 1. Healing at Fann Hospital 2. Physiology of Trauma, Fear, and Anxiety: Polyvagal Theory 3. A Case of Impotence / Xala 4. The Man Who Makes Trees Cry: A Healer’s Art 5. Witch Narratives: Stolen Souls and Aggression 6. Devoured by Fear in Childbirth and Haunted "No-Good" Children 7. Trauma Defenses: Denial, Dissociation, and Magical Thinking 8. Ancestors 9. Bouffée Délirante: Living Myth and Madness