2012 Articles

Rethinking Mental Health

Xu, Kevin

It is not uncommon for a new field of study like global health to find itself caught between two distinct habits of mind that shape the development of disciplines. As noted by geophysicist-turned-ethnographer Franz Boas, one is the tendency of the human mind to “put confused impressions into order” and to rationalize perceptual experience with explanatory principles. The other habit is a sentient one, one less interested in reducing nature to the abstractions of the intellect and more interested in finding beauty, wonder and emotional satisfaction in the nuances of perceptual experience.