Strategic universality in the making of global guidelines for mental health

Depression and Global Mental Health in the Global South: A Critical Analysis of Policy and Discourse

Over the past two decades, depression has become a prominent global public health concern, especially in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). The World Health Organization (WHO) and the Movement for Global Mental Health have developed international guidelines to improve mental health services globally, prioritizing LMICs. These efforts hold promise for advancing care and treatment for depression and other mental, neurological, and substance abuse disorders in LMICs. The intervention guides, such as the WHO's mhGAP-Intervention Guides, are evidence-based tools and guidelines to help detect, diagnose, and manage the most common mental disorders. Using the Global South as an empirical site, this article draws on Foucauldian critical discourse and document analysis methods to explore how these international intervention guides operate as part of knowledge-power processes that inscribe and materialize in the world in some forms rather than others. It is proposed that these international guidelines shape the global discourse about depression through their (re)production of biopolitical assumptions and impacts, governmentality, and "conditions of possibility." The article uses empirical data to show nuance, complexity, and multi-dimensionality where binary thinking sometimes dominates, and to make links across arguments for and against global mental health. The article concludes by identifying several resistive discourses and suggesting reconceptualizing the treatment gap for common mental disorders.

Help-seeking strategies and treatment experiences among individuals diagnosed with Bipolar Spectrum Disorder in Iran: A qualitative study

Social, cultural, and structural factors are associated with delays in seeking help from mental health professionals and poor treatment adherence among patients with mood disorders. This qualitative study examined the perspectives on the services and response to treatments of individuals diagnosed with Bipolar Spectrum Disorder (BSD) in Iran through 37 in-depth semi-structured interviews with patients who had received BSD diagnosis and treatment (excluding Bipolar-I). Interviews explored two broad areas: 1) coping and help-seeking strategies; and 2) barriers to treatment and expectations of outcomes from treatment. Multiple factors influenced the help-seeking strategies and trajectories of patients with BSD diagnoses in Iran, including: structural limitations of the mental healthcare system; modes of practice of biological psychiatry; characteristics of the official psychology and counseling services permitted by Iran's government; popular psychology and consultation (offered through social media from the diaspora) by Iranian psychologists and counsellors in the diaspora; and alternative spiritual and cult-based groups. To improve the quality and accessibility of mental health services, it is essential to have structural changes in the healthcare system that prioritize human rights and individuals' values over the political and ideological values of the state and changes in the professions that promote secular training of mental healthcare providers and an ecosocial model of care.