Essential resource explaining different cultural attitudes towards mental and physical health

As human migration brings an ever more diverse range of people, cultures and beliefs into contact, Western medical systems must adapt to cater for the different approaches it encounters towards illness, the body, gender, mental health and death.

Based upon training courses taught by the author to staff at hospitals, mental health professionals, and on degree courses, this complete resource provides an essential foundation for understanding the complex and manifold approaches to medicine and health around the world. An awareness of this diversity moreover allows healthcare professionals to better engage with their patients and offer them satisfactory care and support in the future.

"In seventeen neat chapters, each helpfully introduced and then summarised for clarity, the author tackles pertinent subjects including 'cultural beliefs about health and illness', 'beliefs about conception and human identity', 'women's bodies and human behaviour', and 'cultural knowledge on death and dying'. This is a worthwhile book, making an ideal companion to two College publications: 'Spirituality and Psychiatry' (Cook et al, 2009) and 'Spirituality and Narrative in Psychiatric Practice' (Cook et al, 2016). Members of the Spirituality and Psychiatry SIG will certainly find it rewarding. Others might find it surprisingly beneficial, both accessible and enlightening, too." - British Journal of Psychiatry