Laurence J. Kirmayer, M.D. is James McGill Professor and Director, Division of Social and Transcultural Psychiatry, McGill University and Editor-in-Chief of Transcultural Psychiatry. He directs the Culture & Mental Health Research Unit at the Jewish General Hospital where he conducts research on the mental health of Aboriginal peoples; mental health services for immigrants and refugees and the cultural basis of psychiatric theory and practice. He was founding director of the Cultural Consultation Service.

Jaswant Guzder, M.D. is Associate Professor of Psychiatry and of Social Work, McGill University, and Head of Child Psychiatry and Director of the Childhood Disorders Day Hospital at the Jewish General Hospital. She was Co-Director of the Cultural Consultation Service from its inception. From 1980 to 1984, she worked in Mumbai, India as a psychiatric consultant and psychoanalyst and continues to consult in India for Ummeed, Angaan and Tata Instituteof Social Services. Her current academic activities include cross-cultural training, family therapy training, and and child trauma projects in Canada, India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Turkey, Israel and Jamaica.

Cécile Rousseau, M.D., [...]. is Associate Professor, Department of Psychiatry & Director, Transcultural Psychiatry Service, CSSS de la Montagne, where she has built a team addressing refugee and immigrant children's mental health, with particular interest in children of war. She has conducted epidemiological and ethnographic research on the personal, family and cultural determinants of refugee children's mental health. She has developed innovative school prevention programs for refugee and immigrant children and adolescents using creative expression workshops. In partnership with researchers in international law and community organizations, she has analyzed the cultural and psychological construction of immigration policies and their consequences for the mental health of refugees.

More psychiatric in focus than the large number of works on cultural issues from counseling psychology, clinical psychology and social work

Emphasis on a consultation model (time-limited interventions) for primary care providers and case managers

Discusses and compares several models for developing and working with multidisciplinary teams

Strong emphasis on work with interpreters, culture brokers and community resources

Underscores the critical awareness of the cultural background of the clinician and the implicit culture of psychiatric knowledge and practice

The approach is focused more on systemic, contextual and political issues than on 'cultural' idiosyncrasies of the case, which are emphasized in some of the literature of medical anthropology

Includes supplementary material: [...]