Teaching Toward Decoloniality: A Mental Health Approach for Guatemala

Figueroa, Chantal

This chapter focuses on the mental health system of Guatemala through interviews with the directors that run this system. In Guatemala, the majority of the public mental health system is composed of one psychiatric hospital—the National Mental Health Hospital Carlos Federico Mora, known as Federico Mora. Based on liberation psychology (Martin-Baró, 1989), I situate mental health within the relational, and in a historical perspective. Eight directors give insight into how the mental health system operates in the country. Findings reveal a high demand for mental health services that is unattended. An effort to avoid the services at the Federico Mora by organizations requiring psychiatric referrals. Finally, a history that ties the creation of the Federico Mora to the internal armed conflict. I argue that in a country where psychological violence was used against the civilian population by the state, mental health is a political issue. In addition, an unresponsive mental health system that uses violence in their care practices is a political strategy that through action and inaction normalizes state terror. In other words, the Federico Mora oppresses Guatemalans receiving services through violence (action) and those requiring services and not able to access them (inaction). This pattern is consistent with that of feminicide. Feminicide implicates the state in the killing of women by men as an act of gendered violence, and as such is a political term (Sanford, 2008; Carney & Torres, 2010; Menjívar, 2011). Because of this context, I propose teaching toward decoloniality as a paradigm centering the mental health needs of Guatemalans.