Abstract
This article presents a critical reflection on the conceptual perspectives in mental health, in the quest for new meanings for this concept and its implications in the context of achieving peace in Colombia. For this, an integrative review of the literature was conducted in seven bibliographic databases and search engines. As a result, five conceptual perspectives of mental health were identified: 1) biomedical and behavioral; 2) wellbeing and its potential; 3) cultural; 4) psychosocial; and 5) based on social determination, the epistemological foundations, contributions, criticisms, and limitations of which are described in each case. Finding more pertinence in the proposal of mental health from collective health/social medicine rather than from the classic public health for achieving peace in Colombia, a comprehensive view of mental health that takes into account its socio-cultural relevance from a critical and socio--historical position is proposed.
Highlights
The review on mental health in situations of armed conflict/peace-building shows how the study of them has primarily focused on armed conflict and less on peace-building, with a morbicentric perspective that takes no account of the collective and political connotation of mental health or its relationship with the overcoming of inequities and social injustices as causes of armed conflict
With a central interest in the concept of mental health in peace-building processes the starting point is recognising that political violence and in it, the quest for peace, has been a matter of public health concern, as reflected by the creation of the World Health Organization (WHO) which, motivated by the effects of world wars, evidenced the mental dimension of health[1]
We present an overview of the major epistemological perspectives on mental health in peace-building processes: biomedical and behavioural, wellness and potentials, cultural, psychosocial and social determination
Summary
The review on mental health in situations of armed conflict/peace-building shows how the study of them has primarily focused on armed conflict and less on peace-building, with a morbicentric perspective that takes no account of the collective and political connotation of mental health or its relationship with the overcoming of inequities and social injustices as causes of armed conflict. 59,761 people have been demobilised from illegal armed groups[5]; while 77 social leaders have been killed 15 months after the start of the implementation of the agreements with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia – People’s Army[6] and a year after the beginning of a negotiation process with the National Liberation Army[7] These agreements with two of the country’s oldest guerrillas enliven the debate on peace-building, whether it starts with the post-agreement or is constituted by the efforts that took place in the midst of armed conflict[8] and whether or not it takes social inequality into account
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