Paper short abstract:

The paper looks at discourses and practices in the field of mental health care in Uganda. In focusing on two alcohol & drug treatment centers, a high-class residential facility and a poorly-funded CBO, it provides insights into the class-based temporalities of mental illness and mental health care.

Paper long abstract:

The paper is based on ongoing research on changing discourses and practices in the field of mental health care and new forms of psycho-social suffering in Uganda. One field of analysis concerns the 'therapeutic landscape' in Uganda, in particular emerging psychiatric and psychotherapeutic institutions, and the accessibility and affordability of these institutions for people from different class- and urban/rural backgrounds. The term 'class-based chronicities' refers to the way both the urgency with which people (can) seek treatment (i.e. when has someone suffered enough?) and the length of treatment they receive (i.e. when is someone considered 'recovered'?) are highly class dependent.

Concretely, the presentation looks at two different drug and alcohol treatment centers in Uganda. The first one, Serenity Centre, is a high-class residential facility near the Ugandan capital Kampala which offers state-of-the-art addiction therapy, but is affordable only for the very rich. The 'patients', usually young men and women from elite backgrounds, stay at the centre between 3 and 6 months before they are considered 'recovered'. In contrast, PACTA, a church-based organization in Northern Uganda, cares mainly for people from poor, rural families who cannot afford exp/tensive treatment. Due to its limited funding, PACTA can only offer short-term 'treatment camps', which last only 6 days.

Comparing the two centers provides important insights not only into the temporalities of mental illness (in this case substance abuse) and mental health care, but also into the changing discourses, practices and institutions which deal with psycho-social suffering in Uganda more broadly.