Editors' introduction

Culture and Mental Health: A Comprehensive Textbook sets out both basic and advanced theoretical, philosophical and clinical foundations for teachers and students, practitioners and policymakers. This textbook builds on national and international policy and service knowledge; doing this and retaining clinical and practice relevance, informed by research, is not an easy task. The authors reveal their local worlds, including their everyday practice, with the aspiration to improve the quality of mental health care to diverse cultural groups. Outside the specialist centres of excellence, there is little information and few training opportunities in culture and mental health care. For most countries routine data on mental health episodes and the epidemiology of mental illness by racial, ethnic and cultural group are lacking. It is often difficult to discern, and rarely confirmed, whether the influence of culture on the expression and management of mental distress follows universal and predictable patterns irrespective of the culture or the country of interest.