Integrating indigenous cultural knowledge into conceptualizing mental illness is indispensable for understanding the different needs of those affected and for developing a comprehensive system of care. The meaning given to symptoms determines what is abnormal and requires treatment. In Uganda the formal health care system is neither the only nor the most widespread treatment provider. Help is often sought from traditional and religious healers, too. With her ethnographic work Lucia Verginer gains insight not only into local explanatory models of mental illness but also into its embedding in the sociocultural context at large. This book sheds light on the situation of mentally ill persons in Uganda and in African countries in general and sketches possible pathways towards better psychiatric care.
