Culture and the Management of Mental Health Issues in African Families and Communities December 14, 2025
Culture influences how mental health issues are perceived and treated (Carr & Blair, 2023). This paper explores how culture influences the management of mental health issues in African families and communities. We begin with some African conceptions of mental health and end with a call for ongoing African-inspired and African-led research.
We draw on examples, including from Liberia, Cote d’Ivoire, Rwanda, Democratic Republic of Congo, South Sudan, Kenya, Malawi, Zimbabwe, and South Africa. We do not assume sameness across the continent or even within ethnic groups. In addition, an intersectional lens is needed. For example, the situations and needs of women (Africa Minds Matter, 2025b), youth, the elderly, and trans people (Pickstone-Taylor et al., 2024) vary.
In exploring mental health, I adopt a conceptual understanding inspired by liberatory psychiatry, in which mental health is a journey to be “free from and free to,” free from the effects of internal biological forces, domination, and alienation that contribute to mental illness and distress and free to flourish, transcend the social realm, and relate to the world (Cohen & Timimi, 2008).
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Culture influences how mental health issues are perceived and treated (Carr & Blair, 2023). This paper explores how culture influences the management of mental health issues in African families and communities. We begin with some African conceptions of mental health and end with a call for ongoing African-inspired and African-led research.
We draw on examples, including from Liberia, Cote d’Ivoire, Rwanda, Democratic Republic of Congo, South Sudan, Kenya, Malawi, Zimbabwe, and South Africa. We do not assume sameness across the continent or even within ethnic groups. In addition, an intersectional lens is needed. For example, the situations and needs of women (Africa Minds Matter, 2025b), youth, the elderly, and trans people (Pickstone-Taylor et al., 2024) vary.
In exploring mental health, I adopt a conceptual understanding inspired by liberatory psychiatry, in which mental health is a journey to be “free from and free to,” free from the effects of internal biological forces, domination, and alienation that contribute to mental illness and distress and free to flourish, transcend the social realm, and relate to the world (Cohen & Timimi, 2008).