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Anthropological perspectives on the trajectory from institutionalisation to community care in Irish psychiatry

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 April 2020

B. D. Kelly Open the ORCID record for B. D. Kelly [Opens in a new window]
B. D. Kelly*
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry, Trinity College Dublin, Trinity Centre for Health Sciences, Tallaght University Hospital, Dublin, D24 NR0A, Ireland
*
*Address for correspondence: B. D. Kelly, Department of Psychiatry, Trinity College Dublin, Trinity Centre for Health Sciences, Tallaght University Hospital, DublinD24 NR0A, Ireland. (Email: brendan.kelly@tcd.ie)
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Abstract

The trajectory of the anthropology of Irish psychiatry, like the trajectory of Irish psychiatry itself, is indelibly shaped by the history of Irelandʼs mental hospitals. This paper focuses on three works concerning the anthropology of psychiatry in Ireland: Nancy Scheper-Hughesʼs book, Saints Scholars and Schizophrenics: Mental Illness in Rural Ireland, an anthropological study (1977/2001); Eileen Kaneʼs paper, ‘Stereotypes and Irish identity: mental illness as a cultural frame’, from Studies: An Irish Quarterly Review (1986) and Michael D’Arcyʼs conference paper, ‘The hospital and the Holy Spirit: psychotic subjectivity and institutional returns in Dublin, Ireland’ (2015), based on his PhD dissertation. All three publications explore the relationship between institutional and community psychiatric care in Ireland, concluding with the work of D’Arcy which, like much good anthropology, is rooted in the lived experience of mental illness and combines deep awareness of the past with tolerance of multiple, ostensibly contradictory narratives in the present.

Keywords

AnthropologyIrelandmental disorderspsychiatry
Type
Perspective Piece
Information
Irish Journal of Psychological Medicine , Volume 39 , Issue 2: Themed Issue: Psychiatric Anthropology , June 2022 , pp. 121 - 130
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of The College of Psychiatrists of Ireland

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