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DEGREE REGULATIONS & PROGRAMMES OF STUDY 2024/2025

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DRPS : Course Catalogue : School of Health in Social Science : Clinical Psychology

Postgraduate Course: Inter-disciplinary Approaches to Global Mental Health: Practice, Policy and Research (CLPS11084)

Course Outline
SchoolSchool of Health in Social Science CollegeCollege of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences
Credit level (Normal year taken)SCQF Level 11 (Postgraduate) AvailabilityAvailable to all students
SCQF Credits20 ECTS Credits10
SummaryThe course is a 20-credit, SCQF 11 Postgraduate course, focusing on the potential value of inter-disciplinary approaches in global mental health.

The course will seek to explore how inter-disciplinary approaches (e.g. clinical psychology, psychiatry, social/medical anthropology, public health social work) can be applied to the 'grand challenges' facing the emerging field of global mental health - these include issues of scalability, maternal and young people's health; the role of digital technologies in mental health and the impact of Covid-19 on mental health.

This course will introduce students to how these different disciplines can work together to integrate global mental health research, policy and practice. This will foster awareness of interdisciplinarity and encourage students to critically engage with issues relating to the theoretical underpinnings and implications of using different approaches. Throughout the course, students will develop critical reflection skills and also acquire competency in synthesizing and presenting interdisciplinary perspectives.

Course description This postgraduate course is designed to enable learners to engage with different disciplinary approaches to global mental health, presenting these different perspectives as applied to key challenges in the global mental health field. The course will promote inter-disciplinary awareness and critical reflection via exposure to different perspectives on a number of global mental health grand challenges (e.g. common mental health disorders, scalability of services, perinatal mental health, young people's wellbeing; delivering cross-cultural mental health care;). Delivery will be by members of staff from the School of Health in Social Science and the School of Social and Political Science, alongside other professional disciplines from the Edinburgh GMH Network (e.g. psychiatry) and NHS colleagues, with one approach featured per session. The aim is to develop interdisciplinary awareness in the context of its translation into research, practice, and policy.

Over the course, students will be introduced to interdisciplinary perspectives via an overview of key concepts, and the identification of a number of interdisciplinary 'grand challenges' in global mental health. The course will then introduce interdisciplinary perspectives through showcases (based on different deliveries including face-to-face and podcast) of different disciplinary/professional approaches to a topic e.g. psychiatry, clinical psychology, social work and anthropology. As the course progresses, students will learn how to integrate these perspectives and translate this into a format that can inform research, policy and practice.

The course will be taught over 10 weeks. Lectures/seminars will combine face-to-face or podcast delivery with group discussion. Each session will be led by a University of Edinburgh lecturer or external stakeholders. These sessions will be supplemented by online reading and peer-led discussion boards. Students will engage in peer-learning through interactions with course deliverers; through discussion in the seminars and by participation in the assessments.
Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
Pre-requisites Co-requisites
Prohibited Combinations Other requirements Entry requirements as programme entry requirements (see https://www.ed.ac.uk/studying/postgraduate/degrees/index.php?r=site/view&edition=2020&id=991)
Information for Visiting Students
Pre-requisitesNone
High Demand Course? Yes
Course Delivery Information
Academic year 2024/25, Available to all students (SV1) Quota:  None
Course Start Semester 2
Course Start Date 13/01/2025
Timetable Timetable
Learning and Teaching activities (Further Info) Total Hours: 200 ( Seminar/Tutorial Hours 24, Formative Assessment Hours 3, Summative Assessment Hours 3, Programme Level Learning and Teaching Hours 4, Directed Learning and Independent Learning Hours 166 )
Assessment (Further Info) Written Exam 0 %, Coursework 70 %, Practical Exam 30 %
Additional Information (Assessment) Written assignment (70%)
Individual presentation (30%)
Feedback Not entered
No Exam Information
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
  1. Students will be able to reconceptualize key issues in global mental health from multiple academic and professional perspectives, enabling an interdisciplinary understanding of these issues.
  2. Students will develop a critical awareness of practical applications of interdisciplinary perspectives in global mental health research, policy and practice.
  3. Students will use these interdisciplinary perspectives to undertake critical reflection on key research, policy and practice challenges in global mental health.
  4. Using a variety of techniques and technologies, students will be using their knowledge to present an integrated perspective on global mental health to potential audiences.
  5. Students will be able to critically engage with current tensions in this field around inter-disciplinary approaches, as applied to implementation in global mental health.
Reading List
White, R.G., Jain, S., Orr, D.M. and Read, U.M. eds., 2017. The Palgrave handbook of sociocultural perspectives on global mental health. Palgrave Macmillan.

Patel, V., Saxena, S., Lund, C., Thornicroft, G., Baingana, F., Bolton, P., Chisholm, D., Collins, P.Y., Cooper, J.L., Eaton, J. and Herrman, H., 2018. The Lancet Commission on global mental health and sustainable development. The Lancet, 392(10157), pp.1553-1598.


Kohrt, B. (Ed.), Mendenhall, E. (Ed.). (2015). Global Mental Health. New York: Routledge, https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315428055

Patel, V., Jenkins, R., Lund, C. (2012). Putting Evidence into Practice: The PLoS Medicine Series on Global Mental Health Practice (and related articles in this series. https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1001226

(Supplementary Reading): Stein, D.J., Bass, J.K. and Hofmann, S.G. eds., 2019. Global Mental Health and Psychotherapy: Adapting Psychotherapy for Low-and Middle-Income Countries. Academic Press.
Additional Information
Graduate Attributes and Skills 1. Ability to critically engage with key conceptual and policy debates in global mental health, applying contextually appropriate perspectives.
2. Apply concepts, theories and methods from an interdisciplinary perspective; (e.g. social work, medical anthropology, clinical psychology, psychiatry and development studies).
3. Critical appraisal of mental health related issues as relating to society; ability to independently apply, integrate and critically reflect on the above.
4. Communicate effectively with a variety of audiences.
5. Apply knowledge acquired to inform global mental health practice, policy and research.
Keywordsglobal,mental health,interdisciplinary,issues,research,policy,practice
Contacts
Course organiserDr Angus MacBeth
Tel:
Email: Angus.Macbeth@ed.ac.uk
Course secretaryMs Katie Killeen
Tel: (01316) 513969
Email: kkilleen@ed.ac.uk
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