Accepted Panels

Partnerships with traditional and faith healers are commonly promoted on the grounds of shared cultural beliefs between healers and the community. However this ignores the complexity and dynamism of such beliefs and debates and tensions between the perspectives of different healers, as well as between health workers and those who use them. We draw on findings from the  UKRI funded Together for Mental Health project which used visual ethnography to explore how mental health workers and healers collaborate in rural Ghanaian communities to improve mental health care and reduce harmful practices such as chaining. Concepts of culture were commonly deployed by mental health workers to describe the popularity of spiritual beliefs and traditional practices. At times this was linked to ‘superstition’ and stigma and used to explain the persistence of practices such as physical restraint. By contrast, ‘culture’ was rarely invoked in relation to the practices of mental health workers who were framed as ‘modern’ and ‘scientific’. However popular references to ‘White man’s medicine’ and ‘African medicine’ acknowledge the salience of history and culture in the formation and intersection of differing epistemologies, whether biomedical or 'spiritual'. We identify points of tension and uncertainty which emerged as people living with mental illness, caregivers, mental health workers and healers negotiated these diverse and seemingly conflicting perspectives to find shared meaning and open pathways to collaboration, healing and recovery.