Cosmologies of Mental Health

One of the most insightful recent works on African health and healing that brings an up-to-date reading of the wider scholarly literature to a focused ethnography of Ghanaian prayer centers. * John M. Janzen, University of Kansas, USA * In Cosmologies of Mental Health, we take a tour of the ubiquitous prayer camps of Ghana, where patients seek deliverance for their mental illness. Benyah treats sufferers as cultural beings who seek to reconnect with family, community and the spirit world, but who also show common sense, matching traditional therapies with allopathic care. This book will inspire supporters of therapeutic pluralism and advocates for the decolonization of psychiatry. * Jonathan Roberts, Mount Saint Vincent University, Canada * This book is a must-read for scholars, healthcare and religious practitioners, activists, and policy makers who care to get a more ingrained grasp of the intersectionality of prayer camps, faith and traditional healing praxis as alternative health reservoirs and complementary medicine in primary healthcare in Ghana in particular and Africa in general. * Afe Adogame, Princeton Theological Seminary, USA * This book offers a fresh perspective on the Akan’s integrated view of religion, health and well-being. The author sheds new light on issues that have not been previously clear and led to unsympathetic conclusions and weak policy decisions. Focusing on the enduring relevance of Christian Prayer Camps due to their alignment with traditional notions of wholeness, he provokes a new discussion of the spiritual understanding of mental health in non-Western cultures. * Abamfo O. Atiemo, University of Ghana, Ghana *