An ethnography of a psychosomatic department in a German hospital reveals a striking contrast with global mental health approaches in the Global South. In Germany, psychosomatic medicine is a distinct discipline that normatively avoids psycho-pharmaceuticals, whereas mental health in the Global South centers on them. The chapter questions why global mental health fixates on the Global South and why there mental health is framed through a dichotomy between superstition (rituals, spirits, trance) and science (psychiatry, drugs), while in Germany these categories often merge.
An ethnography of a German hospital's psychosomatic department challenges the assumptions underlying the global mental health movement. The chapter asks why that movement focuses on the Global South and relies on psycho-pharmaceuticals, while German psychosomatic medicine normatively avoids them. It also questions why mental health in the Global South is framed as a contrast between superstition (rituals, spirits, trance) and science (psychiatry, drugs), whereas in Germany these categories are often fused.