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The Situated Brain: Culture, Context and Ecologies of Mind

Psychiatry has invested in neuroscience research in the hopes that brain research will provide better understanding and more effective approaches to the diagnosis and treatment of mental disorders. Precision psychiatry aims to harness multi-omics, systems neuroscience and big data to generate predictive models that can advance psychiatric theory and clinical practice. To date, however this has continued to yield reductive approaches based on molecular, physiological or neural circuit dysfunction and corresponding pharmacological interventions. Recent work in cognitive science provides an alternate view of brain function as mediated by embodied, enacted, contextually embedded, and environmentally extended processes that constitute a social and cultural ecology of mind. What are the consequences of this ecological view of the brain for cultural psychiatry? Can these views help us rethink the place of neuroscience in an integrative, person-centered psychiatry? This Advanced Study Institute will explore the impact of these new views of mind, brain and person on our sense of self, psychiatric disorders, and processes of healing and adaptation. An interdisciplinary group of scholars will address questions at the intersection of cultural psychiatry, cognitive science and neuroscience, including: (1) ecological and 4E cognitive science views of the mind, brain and person; (2) impact of variations of culture and context on brain functioning and psychopathology; (3) incorporating social context and process in neuroscience research; and (4) translating neuroscience research into culturally informed mental health policy, systems and clinical practice.

Pluralism and Polarization: Cultural Dynamics of Extremism and Radicalization

Recent years have seen an increase in ideological extremism in many countries around the world. There is widespread concern about increasing levels of politically or religiously motivated violence. In some cases, this involves a deliberate process of radicalization and recruitment designed to attract youth to join ongoing conflicts or carry out destructive acts in their regions. In other cases, individuals who are socially marginalized or struggling with mental health problems are impelled toward violence by images and ideologies circulating through popular or social media. Efforts are underway in many countries to address the problem of radicalization to violence. Some have advocated for public health approaches to understanding and intervening to prevent radicalization, but medicalizing social and political problems carries its own risks. Others have focused on building relationships within and between communities to reach marginalized groups and individuals. The impact of anxieties about radicalization goes far beyond the response to specific conflicts. In Europe and North America, concerns with security have fuelled the rise of authoritarianism and the polarization of political debate on immigration and pluralism. This international conference and workshop will bring together scholars from cultural psychiatry, psychology, political and social sciences to consider the role of social dynamics, cultural contexts and psychopathology in political radicalization to violent extremism. Participants will address four broad themes: 1) current meanings and uses of the term radicalization; 2) social determinants, origins and dynamics of violent radicalization and extremism, including individual psychology, family dynamics, microsocial and macrosocial structural and historical forces associated with colonization, globalization and contemporary political, economic and security issues; 3) radicalization in social and cultural context, with cases studies from Africa, Asia, Europe and the Americas; and 4) community prevention and clinical intervention to reduce the risk of violent radicalization and promote pluralism and social integration.

Psychiatry for a Small Planet: Ecosocial Approaches to Global Mental Health

The view of earth from space provided by the Apollo mission in 1968 offered a new way of thinking about the planet as our shared home鈥攁 beautiful blue-green orb floating in space. In recent years, climate change, urbanization, mass migration, and the violence of global geopolitics have created new challenges and a more acute sense of the vulnerability of our planet. This planetary view exists in some tension with the perspective of globalization, which tends to focus on economic growth and development. This international conference and workshop will examine the implications for global mental health of the 鈥渁nthropocene鈥� in which our context of adaptation is dominated by human effects on the environment. Questions to be discussed will include: What ways of thinking about current global or planetary issues can promote empathy, equity and effective action? Does the notion of 鈥減lanetarization鈥� offer an alternative to globalization for thinking about geopolitical and ecological crises? What are the links between care of the planet and care of the self? What cultural values and practices can contribute to adaptation, flourishing and well-being in the face of the massive environmental and social changes that are on the horizon? Sessions will explore topics related to four themes: (1) rethinking the ethics, politics, and governance of global mental health 鈥渇rom the bottom up鈥� to ensure the voice of diverse communities and stakeholders in addressing global health inequities; (2) the impacts of migration and urbanization on mental health; (3) the effects of climate change on the mental health of populations and communities; and (4) ecosocial approaches to mental health promotion of populations and communities. These interconnected processes are changing the configuration of social worlds, presenting new challenges to mental health and affording new possibilities for intervention. Presenters will examine the ways that ecosocial and ecosystemic approaches to health and illness can inform policies and practices that contribute to the treatment and prevention of mental disorders and the promotion of mental health and well-being.

The Arts in Cultural Psychiatry: Identity, Creativity and Transformation

Art plays a unique role in human experience both as an individual and social mode of expression and communal activity. All societies have traditions of fashioning objects, language, and performance in ways that serve to transmit culture, explore the world, entertain, and edify. Active engagement with the arts can transform suffering, give meaning to affliction and support recovery. This ASI will bring together artists, scholars, researchers, and professionals involved in mental health to discuss the role of the arts in cultural psychiatry. Art can be used to build and express individual and collective identity, as a creative process that yields new ways of experiencing the world, as a social and political intervention to critique or challenge existing frameworks, and as a modality for therapeutic interventions.听 Sessions will explore topics related to several broad themes: (1) the nature of creative processes of invention, enactment and improvisation; (2) the role of the arts in constructing and expressing individual and collective identities; (3) art as a medium for articulating, understanding and coping with the experience of mental health and illness; (4) public, social or political uses of art to raise awareness and challenge marginality and oppression; (5) art making as a creative medium for therapeutic exploration, growth, and transformation; and (6) the uses of art in conflict resolution and mental health promotion.

The Politics of Diversity:听Pluralism, Multiculturalism and Mental Health

Globalization is bringing new tensions and challenges to efforts to build multicultural and听inclusive societies. In the name of secularism, neutrality or security, policies are being听enacted that target the cultural, linguistic and religious identities and practices of听minorities. Policies of multiculturalism and interculturalism that promised greater听engagement with others are being challenged by appeals to the vulnerability of dominant听groups and the need to reduce the threats of minorities who are portrayed as radical and听divisive. This international conference and workshop will bring together scholars from听cultural psychiatry, psychology, anthropology, political science, sociology and听philosophy to explore basic questions including:

• How does diversity contribute to mental health and well-being for individuals听and communities?
• How is the 鈥渙ther鈥� constructed and what are the consequences of 鈥渙thering鈥� for听recognition or discrimination and suppression of cultural values and practices?
• What are the implications of recent challenges to multiculturalism and attacks on听diversity in the public space for the health and well-being of populations?
• How can mental health research, policy and practice address the challenge of social听integration in culturally diverse societies?

Sessions will consider: (i) the social and political construction of the other; (ii) the听psychology of 鈥渙thering鈥� and alterity with particular attention to gender; (iii) the听relationship between diversity and mental health well-being; and (iv) strategies in mental听health policy and practice to address the impact of social exclusion and respond to听health disparities.

Mindfulness in Cultural Context

Recent years have seen the enthusiastic embrace of mindfulness meditation and other techniques听drawn from Buddhism as therapeutic interventions in psychiatry. Buddhism is portrayed as a听psychology closely akin to cognitive psychology. However, in the societies where it originated,听Buddhism is a system of practice that has strong ethical and moral dimensions. How does听extracting techniques like meditation from the tradition and social context in which they originate听change the nature and effects of the practice? What is the relationship of these practices to听everyday Buddhism as lived in Asian countries or by migrants to the West? How has the听Westernization and psychologization of Buddhism and other contemplative traditions altered their听meaning? What does contemporary cognitive neuroscience tell us about the nature of meditation听and allied techniques? What are the implications of a cultural/contextual view for the continued听dialogue between Buddhist thought and psychiatry? This workshop and conference will explore听the nature of mindfulness meditation in cultural context. Sessions will address: (1) the varieties of听mindfulness and its location in religious, spiritual and moral traditions including Buddhist听philosophy and psychology; (2) cognitive neuroscientific research on meditation and mindfulness;听(3) the meanings of mindfulness, meditation and related practices in cultural contexts both听globally and in migrant populations; and (4) the uses of mindfulness as a therapeutic intervention听in contemporary psychiatry and psychology.

Global Mental Health: Bridging the Perspectives of Cultural Psychiatry and Public Health

The emerging field of global mental health aims to address the enormous disparities in mental听health outcomes that beset low and middle-income countries. A growing body of research has听established mental health as a priority for global health research and intervention. Significant听advances have been made in identifying targets and strategies for intervention. However, there听continues to be controversy and debate about the appropriate methods for establishing priorities,听research themes and approaches, and modes of developing and/or adapting interventions in global听mental health. In particular, there are tensions between a public health approach grounded in听current evidence-based practices (which are still largely produced in high-income countries) and a听culturally-based approach that emphasizes starting with local priorities, problem definitions,听community resources and solutions. The cultural critique of global mental health has raised basic听issues that will be explored in this workshop and conference: (1) the priorities of global mental听health have been largely framed by mental health professionals and their institutional partners听located in wealthy countries, and therefore reflect the dominant interests of psychiatry and may听give insufficient attention to local priorities; (2) global mental health tends to assume that the听major psychiatric disorders are biologically determined and therefore universal; (3) in focusing on听existing evidence-based treatments, global mental health assumes that standard treatments can be听readily applied across cultures with minimal adaptation; and (4) global mental health tends to听emphasize mental health interventions and may marginalize indigenous forms of helping, healing,听and social integration that can contribute to positive outcomes and recovery. This workshop will听bring together experts in cultural psychiatry and global mental health to consider ways of bridging听these perspectives. Sessions will address four broad themes: (1) setting the agenda in global听mental health; (2) understanding the relationship between local and universal aspects of mental听health problems; (3) developing culturally and community-based interventions; and (4)听implementing and evaluating culturally and community-based interventions to foster resilience听and recovery. The aim of the workshop is to develop some consensus on a research program that听integrates social, cultural, primary care and public health perspectives. The one-day conference听will focus on ways to generate an ongoing constructive critique of the global mental health听movement to insure its goals and methods are responsive to diverse cultural contexts听and communities.