Paper short abstract:

This paper will examine the paradoxical relationship between research and policy on mental health at the WHO, and present a study of mental health programs in Kerala, India including a center that combines biomedical and ayurvedic treatments and a WHO program to expand the use of psychiatry.

Paper long abstract:

This paper will first examine a paradoxical relationship between research and policy on mental health at the World Health Organization (WHO). WHO research has found better mental health outcomes in India than any other place they have studied, and yet WHO programs try to "save" India from its mental health problems through psychiatric interventions, rather than learning what India is doing right. Despite India showing a better outcome in recovery from schizophrenia and related disorders than any country that has been studied, developed or developing, a variety of mental health specialists have declared that India has a "90% gap" between mental health needs and available treatment. This paper will examine the development of this paradox, and how discourses about the 90% gap are used. It will then consider the variety of local practices that may have contributed to India's success in recovery and present a case study of mental health programs in the state of Kerala, India, including a center that combines ayurvedic and biomedical mental health treatments and a WHO-sponsored program that is expanding the use of biomedical psychiatry in Kerala communities. This paper is based on fieldwork conducted in 2014 on recovery from schizophrenia in Kerala and includes an examination of the eclectic and hybrid practices of the state's numerous psychosocial rehabilitation centers. It will suggest what the WHO could learn from Kerala's experience treating psychopathology and how the WHO might productively work with rather than supplant the region's rich array of healing practices.