Call for book chapters: Mental Health: African Understandings, Models, and Interventions

Book details

Title: Mental Health: African Understandings, Models, and Interventions

Editor: Dr William Abur, University of Melbourne, Australia

Length: Approximately 300 pages

Audience: Mental health professionals, academics, policymakers, students, and general readers interested in mental health and cultural studies.

Why this book?

Mental health in the literature is written from Eurocentric perspectives even for African audiences and readers, who are mainly students, academics and practitioners. Indigenous understanding of mental health is neglected yet there are successful models and interventions such as the Friendship Bench that have originated from Africa and are used globally. This gap in literature exists in all professions, including social work.

The book will serve as a fundamental resource for anyone interested in understanding the complexities of mental health within the African context, particularly educators, students and practitioners. By highlighting indigenous practices and contemporary challenges, this book will pave the way for more inclusive and effective mental health strategies that respect and incorporate African cultural values and traditions.

This book aims to explore mental health from an African perspective, highlighting indigenous understandings, culturally relevant models, and interventions. It seeks to challenge the Western-centric view of mental health and provide a comprehensive overview of how mental health is perceived, treated, and understood across various African cultures. By integrating traditional knowledge with contemporary practices, the book will offer valuable insights for mental health professionals and policymakers working in diverse communities.

Invitation

We are inviting chapters that will address some the following themes. Please refer to the proposed possible topics below. 

• African understandings and mental health concepts
• Cultural contexts
• Mental health across the lifespan
• Mental health among the African Diasporas
• Decolonising mental health
• Current models and specific interventions
• Experiences of mental health
• Interventions for the future
• Mental health and migration
• Mental health across the lifespan
• Mental health policy
• Decolonising mental health 
• Mental health and contemporary social problems such as drug and substance use, GBV etc
• Afrofuturism in mental health and advance care planning for older adults
• Researching mental health
• Teaching and learning mental health

Submission

Submit via email a proposed title of chapter, author names and affiliations, 100 word overview of proposed chapter with 6 key words/phrases (include African languages) in in bold inside the overview, 3 lines biographies of authors and 5 main references written in ASWDNet style. These should all be in one document. Submit to william.abur@unimelb.edu.au by 15 March 2025.

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