Dialogue between Vikram Patel and Laurence Kirmayer

In 2018, at the final session of the World Conference of Cultural Psychiatry in New York, USA, a dialogue took place with prof. Vikram Patel and prof. Laurence Kirmayer on how to bridge the gap in the need of psychiatric care in non-Western countries. Prof. Patel focused on the delivery of non-specialized care with low educated professionals, while prof. Kirmayer insisted that this care should be culturally sensitive. On the 10th of November, 2020, this dialogue was continued during the Annual Meeting of the Division of Transcultural Psychiatry of the Netherlands Association of Psychiatry. This video shows this latter dialogue, and a further elaboration with prof. Kirmayer.
Moderators are Dr. Mihri Heval Özgen, who is also the presenter, and Dr. Hans Rohlof.

See the video on https://youtu.be/gU_Ou4XSOAY

Further information:
In the 2018 conference Laurence Kirmayer and Vikram Patel identified important tensions and dilemmas in the program of Global Mental Health (GMH). These include:
(1) the uncertain translatability and transportability of existing psychiatric knowledge and practice in
local contexts;
(2) the limitations of research in low resource settings and the consequent reliance on evidence produced in high-income settings;
(3) the need to understand how to mobilize or modify local systems of care and interventions;
(4) the framing of inequalities in terms of access to mental health services;
(5) the problem of devising systems and interventions that are feasible and effective in low resource settings.
These dilemmas reflect issues phrased by several authors in the Dutch/Flemish Handbook of Cultural Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, for example where explanations of illness and the adequacy of Western treatment models are discussed.
This dialogue is building on the insights of the conversation at the WACP-conference in New York.
The Annual Meeting 2020 (11/10/2020) was organized by a team of the Division on Transcultural Psychiatry of the Netherlands Association of Psychiatry: Naomi Bollen, Huub Beijers, Katinka Haar, Kimberley Rakijo, Mihri Heval Özgen, and Hans Rohlof.