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This event is cosponsored with ASU and the Future Security Initiative.

In , Dr. Khameer Kidia offers an urgent rethinking of the Western approach to mental health, which treats the symptoms rather than the exploitative systems causing our distress. A Rhodes Scholar and Harvard Medical School physician-anthropologist whose own family has experienced the psychological effects of colonialism, Kidia highlights the limitations of the Western mental health model by reporting from the front lines of mental health crises at home, in the clinic, and during a decade of fieldwork.

Clear-eyed and openhearted, Kidia asks the nuanced questions unaddressed by our current mental health model: How do history, culture, and politics shape mental distress? Are hoarding and burnout medical diagnoses or social problems? Why are schizophrenia outcomes sometimes better in poorer countries without antipsychotics? Can a traditional healer treat mental illness better than a Western-trained clinician? For those living in poverty, can cash replace pills?

With rigorous research, cutting analysis, and illuminating prose, Kidia invites us to reimagine mental health as a global idea where our wellbeing is mutual and everyone’s voice—patients, caregivers, and healthcare workers alike—matters.

Join the ¹ú²úÊÓƵ Fellows and Future Security Programs for a conversation with 2023 ¹ú²úÊÓƵ (ASU Future Security) Fellow Khameer Kidia and 2023 ¹ú²úÊÓƵ (Emerson Collective) Fellow Mona Chalabi about Empire of Madness.

Speakers:

Khameer Kidia
2023 ¹ú²úÊÓƵ (ASU Future Security) Fellow 
Author, Empire of Madness

Mona Chalabi
2023 ¹ú²úÊÓƵ (Emerson Collective) Fellow

Copies of Empire of Madness are available for purchase through our bookselling partner Solid State Books.

In partnership: