Acknowledgements

In mid-2021, responding to the Black Lived Matter (BLM) campaign and stimulated by the (then) newly published book Institutional Racism in Psychiatry and Clinical Psychology: Race Matters in Mental Health (Fernando, 2017), a group of members of the (British) Critical Psychiatry Network (CPN) met over a period of six months between June and November 2021,in a ‘Workstream on Institutional Racism & Decolonisation (IR&D)’. Early discussions in the group resulted in a paper (Bracken, et al 2021) that provided an overview of the challenges that decolonising psychiatry may have to face. This work led to Suman Fernando embarking on a review of the literature appertaining to decolonisation of the academic disciplines of Psychiatry and Psychology. Finally, in mid-2022 an international group of seven academics supported Suman and Hári on forming the website eventually named decolpsych.com.

 The authors of decolpsych.com, Suman Fernando and Hári Sewell, are very grateful for contributions at various stages of work in developing this website made by:

The active participants in the IR&D workstream (June – November 2021) namely: 

Derek Summerfield (UK)

Diana Kopua (Aotorea / New Zealand)

Duncan Double (UK)

James Deutsch (Canada)

Megan Parsons (UK) 

Michael Creed (Canada)

Patrick Bracken (Ireland) 

Philip Thomas (UK)

Rukkya Hassan (UK)

Sara Alsaraf (UK)

Tom Gilberthorpe (UK)

(b) Members of the support team advising on development of the website from June 2022 onwards:

Alan Kessedjian (UK)

Jaswant Guzder (Canada) 

Rachel Tribe (UK)

Thirusha Naidu (South Africa)

Vitor Pordeus (Brazil)

 Developing the website

The idea of decolonising academic fields of study, and education itself, has become popular during the past two or three decades, but the notion of doing something practical to make effective change goes back longer. The Second World War (WW2) (1939-1945) was a watershed event in civilisation of the world (Fernando, 2014). The period during and after it’s end saw the fall of major European Empires; the non-Aligned Movement (NAM) of former colonies looked to politically independent status; and a vision was born at the Bandung Conference in 1955 of a world that is very different from (what were then called) the ‘first’ (capitalist) world dominated by Euro-America and the ‘second’ (communist) one dominated by the Soviet Union. This Third World, originally based on identifying material criteria (Tomlinson, 2003) was envisaged as being formed of truly free nations, freedom implying not being dominated by any one socio-political system or one nation. The vision never materialised but the notion remained. The term ‘decolonise’ arose with the implication of turning back the influence of (European) colonisation in fundamental change worldwide. Decolonisation is envisaged today resulting in whatever is being decolonised becoming something very different to what it was when colonised. Today, many (usually small) groups of people have been getting together as workstreams / working parties focusing on what each calls ‘decolonisation’. But, since there is no standard system for decolonisation nor group of skills necessary for decolonising, there is wide variation between these groups in how they go about their business.

 Like the authors of the website, each member of the support team has been aware for some time that there are serious problems in academic disciplines psychiatry and psychology around issues of racism and cultural insensitivity−in fact they have all been researching, thinking about and striving to promote antiracism for many years. It is now evident that many of these problems are legacies of European colonisation of non-European countries. And their thinking has turned to exploring how the noxious effects of colonisation may be removed or, at least, ameliorated to improve the quality of what we know today as systems of mental health. We have been struck by the complexity of issues involved, especially matters such as ‘colonisation of the mind,’ and difficulties in determining what can be done to undo the noxious effects of colonisation−in other words, what de-colonisation means.

Basically, there appear to be two broad types of, or approaches to, decolonisation of academic subjects (like psychiatry and clinical psychology) that influence, often underpin, systems (like mental health systems or medical services) that are designed to help people in trouble of various sort. One approach is the one commonly called ‘Intellectual Decolonisation’ (Moosavi, 2020, title); and second, the sort that Sefa Dei & Lordan (2016) call ‘Anticolonialism’ or ‘Decolonial praxis’ (pp. vii–xxi), work that aims to get radical change on the ground that could be termed ‘Practical Decolonisation’ where the aim is to bring about changes in clinical practice of professionals working as clinicians, or function as counsellors and psychotherapists.  

Intellectual decolonisation is currently being explored and planned by academics usually at universities or statutory organisations that themselves seem uncritical to any extent of current mental health systems and / or inherently resistant to change for political reasons or because of their inherent institutional racism. The approach of practical decolonisation is one of ‘decolonial activism beyond the university …. reversing more tangible aspects of colonialism such as economic reparations or land return to indigenous peoples’ (Moosavi, 2020, pp. 349). Our project aims to bring together elements of both types of decolonisation, to evolve a plan for overall decolonisation, one that is realistic in being aware of what today’s world is like, and the likely limitations that may have to be faced in the process of de-colonising. The changes that decolonisation may achieve, initially at any rate, may amount to reformation and recasting of a mixture of systems of mental health and ways if people who need help — creation of Critical Mental Health.

References:

Bracken, P., Fernando, S., Alsaraf, S., Creed, M., Double, S., Gilberthorpe, T., Hassan, R., Jadhav, S., Jeyapaul, P., Kopua, D., Parsons, M., Rodger, J., Summerfield, D., Thomas, P. and Timimi, S. (2021). Decolonising the medical curriculum: psychiatry faces particular challenges. Anthropology & Medicine: https://doi.org/10.1080/13648470.2021.1949892.

Fernando, S. (2014) Mental Health Worlwide. Culture, Globalisation and Development. London & New York: Palgrave Macmillan

Moosavi, L. (2020) The decolonial bandwagon and the dangers of intellectual decolonisation. International Review of Sociology 30(2): 332–354

Sefa Dei, G. J., & Lordan, M. (2016). Introduction: Envisioning new meanings, memories, and actions for anti-colonial theory and decolonial praxis. In G. J. Sefa Dei, & M. Lordan (Eds.), Anti-colonial theory and decolonial praxis. New York, Bruxelles, etc: Peter Lang.

Tomlinson, B. R. (2003). What was the Third World? Journal of Contemporary History, 38:307 - 321.

Authors and Supporters

Suman Fernando, Professor Emeritus in Social Sciences at London Metropolitan University (UK), has many years of experience as a psychiatrist, researcher, activist and writer. His work has been mainly located in the UK, and extended to Sri Lanka (clinical and research) and Canada (teaching), and he has spoken at international meetings in several countries. Suman writes mainly about transcultural psychiatry, institutional racism and cultural issues in mental health; and about the flawed thinking that underpins the current notion of mental health. His books are critical of mental health systems derived from Eurocentric models of psychiatry and psychology that dominate thinking about wellbeing and matters appertaining to ‘mind’, a concept that varies across cultures (https://www.sumanfernando.com).

Email: sumanfernando32@gmail.com

Hári Sewell had experience of mental health as a social worker and Approved Social Worker (ASW) under the (British) Mental Health Act. Later, he worked in community mental health work, latterly as an Executive Director of Health and Social Care in the National Health Service in North London, and on regulation and policy at the Department of Health (UK). He is now a member of the Council (Board of Trustees) at the British Association of Social Workers and member of the Scientific Board of the ESRC Centre for Society and Mental Health. Also, he leads HS Consultancy (which he founded) that provides resources and advice to organisations in the field of health and social care.

Hári has had various books, articles and book chapters published, with new material emerging regularly. He has been committed to antiracist work in mental health from being part of the Transcultural Psychiatry Society (UK) in association with Suman Fernando and others since the early 1990s, to current work teaching and campaigning. His books Working with Ethnicity, Race and Culture in Mental Health (2018) and The Equality Act 210 in Mental Health: A Guide to Implementation and Issues for Practice (2012), have been important texts for practitioners.  

Hári writes and lectures on social justice, equality, race and culture in mental health and has been teaching as Senior Visiting Fellow at the University of Central Lancashire, as Specialist Guest Lecturer at University of Bradford, and Visiting Lecturer at Christ Church Canterbury University. The Consultancy that runs provides training in social justice and equity. Hári has campaigned to secure services for survivors of sexual violence and he currently runs a campaign “Men Supporting Women’s Rights” including “Men Against Rape”.  He is increasingly interested in studying forms of masculinity and the possibilities in practice and employee relations to recognise the intersections between masculinity and other aspects of identity.

E-mail: contact@hsconsultancy.org.uk

Jaswant Guzder is a child and cultural psychiatrist as well as a visual artist who has exhibited internationally. She is currently a Professor (retired) of Psychiatry, researcher and teacher at McGill University in Canada. Prior to the Covid epidemic she was the head of child psychiatry, director of childhood disorders day hospital and director of the cultural consultation service at the McGill Jewish General Hospital. Jaswant had formative global health engagement with the late professor emeritus Fred Hickling in Jamaica and a series of projects in Nepal, India and Sri Lanka. During recent exhibitions in Berlin and Rome in 2019, with Saavy International and during an art residency in Rome with Dr Pompeo Martelli, she was part of dialogues on decolonization, arts and healing, and community engagement themes. Since Covid, her clinical work is primarily with both refugee center and the child and youth indigenous mental health service for southern Vancouver Island regions on the Pacific coast.

E-mail: jaswant.guzder@icloud.com

Alan Kessedjian has over thirty years of clinical experience in both psychiatric nursing and psychology, with a specialism in acute settings in the UK. Currently, he is a visiting member of teaching staff and widening access mentor at the Oxford Institute of Clinical Psychology Training in the UK. He has experience of co-producing and delivering mental health training in Palestine with psychiatrist Dr. Samah Jabr. His work has been inspired by the work of Suman Fernando, and he is passionate about embedding decolonial praxis in ‘care’ contexts and organizational culture.

E-mail: dralankessedjian.hotmail.co.uk

Thirusha Naidu is Associate Professor in the Department of Behavioural Medicine at Nelson R Mandela Medical School, University of KwaZulu-Natal; and Head of Clinical Psychology Unit at King Dinuzulu Hospital, South Africa. She writes about decolonising medical education and disrupting colonial methodologies in global medical education research. She has done research in community psychology and social psychology in South Africa and practices as a clinical psychologist in the public health system in South Africa.

E-mail: naidut10ukzn.ac.za

Vitor Pordeus, a medical doctor and actor, has been involved in collaborative networks in community transcultural mental health in Brazil, working in Rio de Janeiro as a physician for over 20 years. He specialises in developing seminal experiences involving theater, public spaces and community transcultural psychiatry. In the past, he has worked in the oldest Brazilian Asylum where the Museum of Images of the Unconscious is located; and he founded and directed the Center for Culture, Science and Health in the Public Health Office of Rio de Janeiro City, the Madness Hotel and Spa and the Popular University of Art and Science. During the past four years Vitor has been dedicated to managing the DyoNises Theater Clinic that he founded and operated under community funding.  In 2017-2022 Vitor was Resident Artist at the Department of Psychiatry, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada.

E-mail: vitorpordeus@gmail.com

Rachel Tribe is a critical psychologist and has consulted to a wider range of both statutory and voluntary organisation in a number of countries. She is a Chartered Counselling and Occupational Psychologist, currently Professor of Applied Psychology at the University of East London and at Queen Mary, University of London (UK) and a Trustee of three international mental health charities. Rachel has worked in partnership with colleagues in Sri Lanka in developing psychology and psychological services and leads the Refugee Mental Health and Wellbeing Portal in London, a resource for refugees, asylum-seekers, vulnerable migrants, and health and social care professionals.  She has written and published widely on working in mental health across language and culture.  

E-mail: rachel.tribe@virginmedia.com