Mental Health in Indigenous Contexts the Brazilian Territory

This book sets out to discuss issues that cross the field of mental health in indigenous contexts in Brazil. The first chapter aims to survey articles, dissertations and theses produced between 1999 and 2012 on the main Brazilian scientific platforms. Based on the results of the survey and the analysis of each of the papers, it was possible to observe that Brazilian research related to mental health in indigenous contexts is still incipient and needs more epistemological discussion to substantiate the complexity of the subject. The second chapter thus aimed to foster a theoretical and epistemological discussion, problematizing concepts and references used uncritically in most of the publications. Concepts such as health, mental, Indian and indigenous, as well as DSM criteria were rethought with the aim of highlighting critical historical and epistemological aspects. This highlighted the importance of dialog with Transcultural Psychiatry, which focuses on the interface between mental health and non-Western cultures, deconstructing the hegemonic biomedical references imported by psychiatric knowledge.