Cultural psychiatry and traditional health care systems in Mali: how can they interact?

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Periodical article

Title:	Cultural psychiatry and traditional health care systems in Mali: how can they interact?
Authors:	Beneduce, Roberto Koumaré, Baba
Year:	1993
Periodical:	Psychopathologie africaine
Volume:	25
Issue:	1
Pages:	59-75
Language:	English
Geographic term:	Mali
Subjects:	ethnopsychiatry psychotherapy
Abstract:	In the 5th Region of Mali, in the eastern part of the country, a research and intervention programme has been set up whose aims are to define possible strategies for collaboration between the models of Western psychiatry and those of traditional medicine, and to identify guidelines for intervention which might be profitably integrated into Mali's National Health Plan for the prevention and treatment of mental disease. Within the framework of the project, the 'Centre régional de médecine traditionnelle' was established in Bandiagara. This article summarizes the stages of the project and examines its preliminary findings. A qualitative and quantitative census was taken of the traditional healers working in the eight provinces of the 5th Region and a participant-observer study was initiated in order to analyse their conceptual framework and practices, as well as the Dogon and Peul nosological categories employed to classify mental disorder. The authors consider some methodological problems of ethnopsychiatric research, particularly concerning the assessment of the effectiveness of traditional therapies. Bibliogr., sum. in English and French.