Gopalkrishnan, Narayan (2014) Integrative medicine and mental health: implications for social work practice. In: Francis, Abraham P., (ed.) Social Work in Mental Health: contexts and theories for practice. SAGE, New Delhi, India, pp. 273-290.

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Abstract

[Extract] In many countries across the world, mental health needs are largely managed through a biomedical approach that is based on a clear separation between systems that deal with physical health issues and those that deal with mental health. The biomedical basis for working with health issues has been useful up to an extent as the framework is very effective at disease control and prevention, but is not so effective for chronic disease as well as in dealing with issues of cultural differences in understandings of health and illness, causality and healing, and mind/body duality. Among users of health systems there is increasingly an awareness of the embodied interface between the spiritual, the social, the psychological and the biological being, leading to more utilisation of Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) systems.

In this chapter it is argued that Integrative Medicine (IM), as an integrated or holistic paradigm that incorporates the different modalities and health systems, would make for far better outcomes in terms of mental health than the biomedical by itself Some of the key principles of IM will be presented followed by a discussion of the issues relating to the adoption of this paradigm.

Item ID:	34408
Item Type:	Book Chapter (Research - B1)
ISBN:	978-81-321-1739-1
Date Deposited:	07 Aug 2014 02:59
FoR Codes:	16 STUDIES IN HUMAN SOCIETY > 1607 Social Work > 160799 Social Work not elsewhere classified @ 100%
SEO Codes:	94 LAW, POLITICS AND COMMUNITY SERVICES > 9401 Community Service (excl. Work) > 940111 Ethnicity, Multiculturalism and Migrant Development and Welfare @ 100%
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