New and old knowledge aimed at decolonising mental health: reflections and proposals from Chile

Abstract

Assuming that coloniality and its expression in hegemonic medicine and conventional psychiatry are present in most Latin American countries, this article explores unknown dimensions of decolonisation: the subjective, but social process of decolonisation of the being in hegemonic groups as the physicians. Although in Chile there are new models and state programmes that promote collective mental health and interculturality, they generally fail because they are trapped in the colonial system of power/knowledge and life/being. Grounded on the perspective of critical interculturality, we need to rethink mental health from the colonial difference to propose a new epistemology of power/knowledge and life/being based on indigenous concepts as well-being. Considering structural transformation as a key issue, through a case study of a lived intercultural experience, we point out that the activation of the decolonisation process requires not only new models of mental health but also a profound epistemic subjective transformation of physicians as colonised subjects.