Textbook of Global Mental Health: Trauma and Recovery. A Companion Guide for Field and Clinical Care of Traumatized People Worldwide. (2012) Richard F. Mollica (Ed.). Harvard Program in Refugee Trauma, Cambridge, 559 páginas.

Abstract

The major aim of this book is to aid the work of those professionals struggling daily at the local level to restore the health and wellbeing of the millions of people whose lives are disrupted each year. Mass violence and disaster create a new historical space where actions and behaviours that once seemed incomprehensible in daily life emerge as normal, Mollica claims. The aid that was given internationally in the past took advantage of the accumulating scientific knowledge derived from decades of fieldwork caring for traumatized persons. In this textbook, an overview of this knowledge is provided. It grew out of an historic meeting of the world's Ministers of Health in Rome in 2004 (called Project 1 Billion for the number of people affected by violence) to establish and disseminate the first Global Mental Health (GMH) Action Plan. This plan offers a culturally valid, science based guide to the development and implementation of ongoing mental health programmes in post conflict areas. The complete text of the Global Mental Health Action Plan is part of the book. The eight dimensions of the plan are chapters in this book. Each chapter contains a state-of-the-art knowledge from science and culture and is written by experts on politics, mental health, economic development, humanitarian aid and human rights. The chapters are not intended to stand-alone but are part of an integrated approach of trauma and recovery. It is one of the aims of this book to ‘break down the silos that often define health/mental health activities’ (p.40). Mollica illuminates this with examples of the mental health professional who reveals a complete lack of knowledge of financing and human rights workers who have little knowledge of clinical areas of expertise. The eight dimensions of the GMH Action Plan are as follows: mental health policy and legislation, financing of mental health recovery, science-based mental health services, building an ongoing programme of mental health education, coordination of international agencies, mental health linkages to economic development, mental health and *) Saxion University