ABSTRACT
A Western psychiatrist when attending a conference in India or Pakistan may therefore be surprised when religious practice is included in a scientific programme. For some psychiatrists any attempt to explore the nature of the relationship is regarded as an irrelevant luxury and religious belief may be ignored or even pathologised. Transcultural Psychiatry thus gains its theoretical ‘momentum’ and clinical relevance from an interest in similarities and differences between cultures which may determine referral pathways to health care, symptom choice and management plans. A greater understanding of the transcultural perspective to the practice of psychiatry will arise therefore from a greater sensitivity to the cultural and religious assumptions of health practitioners and patients. Social psychiatry and epidemiology are more ‘centre stage’ in health service delivery, and their link with established Transcultural Psychiatry research literature is more widely recognised. R. A. Lambourne anticipated a coming together of psychiatry and religion in an influential book Community Church and Healing.
