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Anthropology and psychology share a long history of rivalry, collaboration, and mutual disregard. This volume reconsiders psychology as a field of anthropological enquiry. In doing so, it takes an ethnographic approach to psychology, examining psychotherapeutic practices and models of mental health at the heart of ‘psy’. Featuring ethnographic studies of psychological therapies, subjects, and professionals, the book also suggests what an anthropological voice can offer to improve psychological healthcare. At the cutting edge of ethnographic research, this book brings together studies from the Global North and Global South, showing how psychological realities shape our understandings of what it means to be human.
“This is an excellent book. It deals with a timely and important issue in a sensitive manner.” • Keir Martin, University of Oslo
“This is a fascinating volume with an important agenda: to understand, ethnographically, the powerful hold that concepts and practices of ‘psychology’ have come to exert on our lives. Refreshing in its focus on non-biomedical psychologies and psychotherapies, and with case studies drawn from across Africa, Asia, Europe, and North America, it should be essential reading for all anthropologists of contemporary selfhood.” • Nicholas J. Long, London School of Economics and Political Science
“This groundbreaking volume explores how psychological healthcare, expertise, and identity are changing around the world, setting new directions for understanding the relationship between psychology and culture in the twenty-first century. Drawing on in-depth fieldwork, the contributors examine how people use psychological ideas and practices to care for themselves and others. They show how psychological concepts spread and become meaningful across different cultures, while questioning the assumptions we often take for granted about mental health and well-being.” • Joanna Cook, University College London
Mikkel Kenni Bruun is an Affiliated Lecturer at the University of Cambridge and Research Associate at King’s College London. He is the co-editor of Rhythm and Vigilance: Ethnographies of Surveillance and Time (Bristol University Press, 2025).
Acknowledgements
Illustrations
Introduction: Thinking Ethnographically about Psychology
Mikkel Kenni Bruun
Chapter 1. Mixing Treatment Modalities: An Ethnography of Mental Healthcare Bricolage in Canada
Dina Bork
Chapter 2. Treating Patients ‘Who Don’t Speak’: The Challenge of Treating Children with Eating Disorders in a Residential Facility in Italy
Giulia Sciolli
Chapter 3. More Likely Psychological? Exploring Mental Troubles and Psychology in Ouagadougou
Annigje van Dijk
Chapter 4. When the Counsellors Give: Material Support and Therapeutic Agency in State-Based Psychological Counselling Services in Sri Lanka
Nadia Augustyniak
Chapter 5. In (the) Practice: Pioneering Psychotherapy in Uganda
Julia Vorhölter
Chapter 6. Throwing Out the Psyche: Scientific Persuasions in British Psychotherapy
Mikkel Kenni Bruun
Chapter 7. Encoding Wellness: On Cultures of Risk when Building Digital Mental Wellb-Being Apps
Jennifer Cearns
Afterword: An Anthropology of Psychology in the Twenty-First Century
Keir Martin
Index