A career in culture and psychiatry research: Reflections on forty-plus years

Abstract

The report chronicles a 44-year career in cultural psychiatry spent at Duke, Cornell, Harvard, the University of British Columbia, the University of Toronto, and Ryerson Universities. It describes my studies in a rural community in Nova Scotia, in traditional villages in Senegal, West Africa, on Canadian First Nations reserves and American Indian reservations, in refugee camps in Southeast Asia, among immigrant and refugee communities in Canada, in Ethiopia, and in Israel. The report summarizes major findings resulting from these research efforts, and discusses contributions to theory as well as potential implications for practice as well as policy. The article concludes with reflections about the present state of cultural psychiatry, raises concerns about where the field seems to be in danger of going wrong, and offers suggestions about what needs to be done next.