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Abstract
This paper contends that African-centered models of psychopathology represent a heretical challenge to orthodox North American Mental Health. Heresy is the defiant rejection of ideology from a smaller community within the orthodoxy. African-centered models of psychopathology use much of the same language and ideas about the diagnostic process as Western psychiatry and clinical psychology but explicitly reject the ideological foundations of illness definition. The nature of the heretical critique is discussed, and implications for the future of this school of thought are offered.
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Department of Sociomedical Sciences, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University, 722 W. 168th St., New York, NY, 10032
Naa Oyo A. Kwate Ph.D.
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Kwate, N.O.A. The Heresy of African-Centered Psychology.J Med Humanit26, 215–235 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10912-005-7698-x
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