Dr Caryl James Bateman’s book, Traditional and Western Medicine: Voices from Jamaican Psychiatric Patients received an Independent Publisher Book Awards (IPPY Award). Her book received the gold medal in the category of Psychology/Mental Health.

Traditional and Western Medicine: Voices from Jamaican Psychiatric Patients is for anyone interested in broadening their perspective on alternative treatment models, particularly the use of traditional methods alongside Western biomedical techniques.

Caryl James Bateman critiques the tensions that exist between conventional approaches in psychiatric treatment and highlights how these may interfere with patients’ views, especially those patients who have endemic beliefs in spiritual influences on health and traditional cures and rituals, often originating from African teachings.

Through the stories of six former patients who, despite receiving Western biomedical treatment, conceptualize their illness using a traditional viewpoint, James Bateman empowers the patients to tell their own stories of their personal journeys and share their lived experiences of mental illness, giving the reader a rare first-hand account of what lies beyond the label of a psychiatric diagnosis.

Caryl James Bateman is a Clinical Psychologist and Eating Disorder Specialist in Jamaica. She is also a Senior Lecturer and Associate Dean for Undergraduate Studies and Student Experience in the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of the West Indies, Mona.

She is deeply committed to improving mental health in the Caribbean. Through her research and work with her patients, she has recognized that culture plays a significant role in the way patients seek and receive treatment.

Her research is focused mainly on eating disorders, other forms of psychopathology and the lived experiences of psychiatric patients. In the international community Dr James Bateman is known to actively share information on the Caribbean culture and its impact on the presentation and treatment of eating disorders.

The Faculty of Social Sciences congratulates Dr James Bateman on her IPPY Award!