If the irony isn’t already obvious, let me make it clear: offering the latest Western mental health theories in an attempt to ameliorate the psychological stress caused by globalization is not a solution; it is a part of the problem. By undermining both local beliefs about healing and culturally created conceptions of the self, we are speeding along the disorienting changes that are at the very heart of much of the world’s mental distress. It is the psychiatric equivalent of handing out blankets to sick natives without considering the pathogens that hide deep in the fabric.
