Public mental healthcare and economic vulnerability in Sri Lanka
Scholars and practitioners in Sri Lanka's mental health and psychosocial field have long highlighted the complex cultural, social and political dynamics of providing care to communities impacted by war and natural disaster and facing a fraught post-war context. One critical contribution of this...
Saved in:
| Main Author: | |
|---|---|
| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Elsevier
2025-06-01
|
| Series: | SSM - Mental Health |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666560324000926 |
| Tags: |
Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
|
| _version_ | 1850127742687772672 |
|---|---|
| author | Nadia Augustyniak |
| author_facet | Nadia Augustyniak |
| author_sort | Nadia Augustyniak |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Scholars and practitioners in Sri Lanka's mental health and psychosocial field have long highlighted the complex cultural, social and political dynamics of providing care to communities impacted by war and natural disaster and facing a fraught post-war context. One critical contribution of this work has been to offer a practice-based corrective to psychological conceptions of wellbeing that obscure its relational, economic, and political dimensions. In this article, I consider the importance of this insight in light of the 2022 debt crisis in Sri Lanka and against the backdrop of global mental health discourses that continue to elide the question of structural determinants of distress. Based on ethnographic research conducted between 2018 and 2020, I highlight the practice of government counselors and other mental health professionals in one district of Sri Lanka's Central Province. Their experiences suggest that despite expanded access to mental health services over the last 20 years, care is undermined by the structural realities of widespread economic precarity and inadequate social protections. This problematizes the global discourse of access to mental health care—which implies but often does not truly account for the social and economic bases of wellbeing—and underscores the fact that expansion of mental health services should go hand in hand with the expansion of social protections and economic support. |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-464a5e70f0e945b2a9d3ad6bbba3eab0 |
| institution | OA Journals |
| issn | 2666-5603 |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2025-06-01 |
| publisher | Elsevier |
| record_format | Article |
| series | SSM - Mental Health |
| spelling | doaj-art-464a5e70f0e945b2a9d3ad6bbba3eab02025-08-20T02:33:35ZengElsevierSSM - Mental Health2666-56032025-06-01710038710.1016/j.ssmmh.2024.100387Public mental healthcare and economic vulnerability in Sri LankaNadia Augustyniak0Social and Cultural Anthropology, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Helsinki, PO 18 (Unioninkatu 35), 00014, FinlandScholars and practitioners in Sri Lanka's mental health and psychosocial field have long highlighted the complex cultural, social and political dynamics of providing care to communities impacted by war and natural disaster and facing a fraught post-war context. One critical contribution of this work has been to offer a practice-based corrective to psychological conceptions of wellbeing that obscure its relational, economic, and political dimensions. In this article, I consider the importance of this insight in light of the 2022 debt crisis in Sri Lanka and against the backdrop of global mental health discourses that continue to elide the question of structural determinants of distress. Based on ethnographic research conducted between 2018 and 2020, I highlight the practice of government counselors and other mental health professionals in one district of Sri Lanka's Central Province. Their experiences suggest that despite expanded access to mental health services over the last 20 years, care is undermined by the structural realities of widespread economic precarity and inadequate social protections. This problematizes the global discourse of access to mental health care—which implies but often does not truly account for the social and economic bases of wellbeing—and underscores the fact that expansion of mental health services should go hand in hand with the expansion of social protections and economic support.http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666560324000926Mental healthState servicesSocial inequalityEconomic crisisSocial determinants of distressSri Lanka |
| spellingShingle | Nadia Augustyniak Public mental healthcare and economic vulnerability in Sri Lanka SSM - Mental Health Mental health State services Social inequality Economic crisis Social determinants of distress Sri Lanka |
| title | Public mental healthcare and economic vulnerability in Sri Lanka |
| title_full | Public mental healthcare and economic vulnerability in Sri Lanka |
| title_fullStr | Public mental healthcare and economic vulnerability in Sri Lanka |
| title_full_unstemmed | Public mental healthcare and economic vulnerability in Sri Lanka |
| title_short | Public mental healthcare and economic vulnerability in Sri Lanka |
| title_sort | public mental healthcare and economic vulnerability in sri lanka |
| topic | Mental health State services Social inequality Economic crisis Social determinants of distress Sri Lanka |
| url | http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666560324000926 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT nadiaaugustyniak publicmentalhealthcareandeconomicvulnerabilityinsrilanka |