In this classic text the authors examine the links between racism, psychological ill health and inadequate treatment of ethnic minorities. Through a series of case studies they discuss: * the psychological legacy of colonialism and slavery * the racist bias in psychiatric and psychological theory * diagnostic bias * the role of religion in mental health or illness * the value of anthropological and pschoanalytic insights. The concluding chapter in this edition reviews the development of 'transcultural psychiatry' and summarises changes in administration of the Mental Health Act.

Roland Littlewood is Professor of Anthropology and Psychiatry at University College London. Maurice Lipsedge is a Consultant Psychiatrist and Senior Lecturer at Guy's Hospital, London.

1 Ethnic minorities and the psychiatrist 2 Medicine and racism 3 The question of black depression 4 Mental illness among immigrants to Britain 5 A digression on diagnosis 6 The price of adaptation 7 Sick societies 8 A prelude to insanity? 9 Normal and abnormal 10 The illness as a communication 11 Some conclusions 12 The development of 'transcultural psychiatry' in Britain 1982-96