ABSTRACT

This chapter presents the story of Jak and Mari as it explores two issues of central concern in current global mental health interventions: how best to identify and communicate mental distress and how to implement effective solutions for problems of health care access. First, the chapter explores the idiom of distress thinking too much as used in rural Haiti. Second it considers the challenges to addressing mental disorders in a resource-poor setting such as rural Haiti. This study derives from mixed-methods research conducted in the summers of 2010 and 2011 and throughout 2013, concerning mental health in Haiti's Central Plateau. Thinking too much is one of many cultural concepts of distress that identified in Haiti's Central Plateau. The intervention that implemented in rural Haiti was intended to train motivated community members to identify cases of mental distress, provide basic psychosocial support, and determine when to refer individuals to specialist services.