Revisiting therapeutic governance: the politics of mental health and psychosocial programmes in humanitarian settings, Working Paper 98
Katherine Rehberg
http://www.rsc.ox.ac.uk/publications/revisiting-therapeutic-governance-the-politics-of-mental-health-and-psychosocial-programmes-in-humanitarian-settings
In this paper, the author charts the proliferation of Mental Health and Psychosocial Support (MHPSS) programmes in humanitarian settings, and examines the fierce criticisms they have attracted. She uses Vanessa Pupavac's critique of psychosocial programming as constituting 'therapeutic governance', or the or the homogenisation, pathologisation, controlling and depoliticisation of affected communities, to analyse the evolution of these programmes and the debates surrounding them. She then uses this framework to assess current practice in the MHPSS field, as represented by the 2007 Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC) Guidelines on Mental Health and Psychosocial Support. She argues that practitioners have made significant progress in moving toward a culturally-appropriate and empowering model of psychosocial programming within humanitarian interventions, although individual programmes would still benefit from situation-specific evaluation. She finds that the 2007 IASC Guidelines have addressed Pupavac's critiques of homogenisation and pathologisation. However, she also argues that there remains the potential for MHPSS programmes to contribute to the controlling and depoliticising nature of broader humanitarian programming.
Katherine Rehberg was an MSc student at the Refugee Studies Centre from 2012-2013.
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