Sunil Bhatia - When Psychology Speaks for You, Without You
Mad in America: Rethinking Mental Health
Mad in America
4.7 • 212 Ratings
🗓️ 15 May 2020
⏱️ 55 minutes
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Summary
Sunil Bhatia is a professor and chair of the Department of Human Development at Connecticut College. He is the author of two books and over 50 articles and book chapters. He has received numerous awards for his work in the field of decolonizing psychology, cultural psychology, and qualitative methods and for studies of migrant and racial identities. Most recently, his second book, Decolonizing psychology: Globalization, social justice, and Indian youth identities,received the 2018 William James book award from the American Psychological Association APA).
The movement to decolonize psychology is led by interdisciplinary scholars demanding a move away from the biomedical model of mental health and its colonial roots, especially in the Global South. Bhatia has been writing about these issues for over two decades and has often encountered resistance for speaking against mainstream voices. He is now one of the foremost experts in the field of decolonial studies. His work asks vital questions: Who decides what psychology should study? How do economic and social systems influence psychology? Is it possible to address economic inequality and social issues in psychotherapy? Does psychology speak of people, about people, or does it try to speak for them?
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the Mad in America podcast, your source for science, psychiatry, and social justice. |
| 0:13.8 | Hello, everyone, and welcome to another episode of the Mad in America podcast. |
| 0:18.6 | This is Ayur Didar, your host for today. |
| 0:21.0 | As I conduct this interview, we are living in strange and scary times because of the |
| 0:25.6 | massive outbreak of COVID-19 across the world. |
| 0:28.7 | I'm hoping that next time I speak with all of you, things will be better. |
| 0:33.3 | Meanwhile, in the world of psychiatry and psychology, things are always on the move. |
| 0:37.8 | A new study in Lancet Psychiatry found that migrants living in high-density areas, |
| 0:42.2 | with other migrants from the same place of origin, are less likely to suffer from psychosis. |
| 0:47.9 | A new special issue in transcultural psychiatry has brought together researchers from different disciplines |
| 0:53.7 | who have demanded a move away from |
| 0:55.8 | the biomedical model and its colonial roots when it comes to the global mental health movement. |
| 1:01.0 | And lastly, a new article in World Social Psychiatry has yet again asserted that psychology and |
| 1:06.9 | psychiatry often ignore the context and knowledge of the global South, causing more |
| 1:11.4 | problems than solving them. |
| 1:13.3 | These last two articles provide a perfect segue to introduce our guest today, Dr. Sineal Bhattia. |
| 1:19.4 | Dr. Bhatiah is a professor of human development and the chair of his department at Connecticut |
| 1:23.9 | College. |
| 1:25.0 | He is the author of two books and around 50 articles and book chapters. |
| 1:29.5 | And his second book received the 2018 William James Book Award from the APA. His area of expertise |
| 1:35.7 | is cultural psychology, decolonizing psychology, migrant and racial identities and qualitative methods. |
| 1:42.5 | And he has many, many awards to his name. |
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