People eat, drink and breathe culture. Without any conscious awareness, we absorb culture; and as culture becomes an integral part of us we become acculturated and a part of culture. Although nearly a century ago cultural variations in the presentation of mental illness were noted, the impact of culture on distress, identification of symptoms and reaching diagnosis as well as pathways people follow into health care (be it statutory or non-statutory) have become clearly important in the last quarter of a century. It appears that cultural psychiatry is gradually taking over the role of social psychiatry. Cultural factors in aetiology, management and prognosis are being identified both as within cultures but also increasingly in a comparative style across cultures. The relationship of the clinician with the medical formulation on the one hand, and the cultural formulation on the other, has led to a creative tension which can be seen in this volume.

With ever-increasing globalization and the international flow not only of people but of physical resources too, it is essential that any clinician practising in the twenty-first century be aware of the cultural norms and variations. We have deliberately stepped away from one approach of cultural psychiatry (which relies on dealing with each individual cultural group as if it were isolated) to adopt one that emphasizes broad principles that can then be used to develop patient-based services rather than group or culture or ethnicity-based services.

The book is divided into six Parts.