Professors Dikomitis and Shergill demonstrate how psychiatrists and anthropologists both rely on observation, discourse analysis and access to participants’ internal and external worlds.
Professor Lisa Dikomitis, anthropologist and Director of Warwick Applied Health at Warwick Medical School, and Professor Sukhi Shergill, psychiatrist at KMMS and the Kent and Medway Mental Health NHS Trust, co-lead a mental health research programme on ethnic minority mental health, with a focus on Sikhs in the UK and in the Punjab, India.
In a new editorial, published in the British Journal of Psychiatry, Professors Dikomitis and Shergill show how psychiatrists and anthropologists both rely on observation, discourse analysis and access to participants’ internal and external worlds. Through their ongoing anthropological study among the Sikh community in Kent, in which they integrate psychiatry with anthropology, they provide excellent examples of the need for interdisciplinary mental health research underpinned by ethnography.
The authors argue that psychiatry, while adept at diagnosing and treating mental-health issues, often overlooks the deeper cultural, social and lived-experience layers of patients’ lives. This is particularly the case among ethnic minority groups. They propose that ethnography — long-term, immersive research in communities, attentive to discourse, culture, migration history and intersectional disadvantage — offers a powerful complement to standard psychiatric methods and mental health research.
Drawing on their work with a UK Sikh community, they show how purely clinical or survey-based approaches can miss important phenomena (such as unreported suicides or generational patterns of silence around mental health) and contend that ethnographic insights are crucial to uncover inequalities, design appropriate interventions and bridge the gap between mental-health services and marginalized populations.
Working with KMMS Professor Sukhi Shergill and the Kent research group has been a truly inspiring collaboration. Our ongoing work demonstrates how ethnography can enrich psychiatric practice. It opens up new ways to understand, support, and connect with the communities we serve.
“Our collaboration between anthropology and psychiatry has been fantastic. It constantly sparks new ideas and ways of thinking. Bringing ethnography into psychiatry is not just about research. It is about listening, understanding and creating care that truly reflects people’s lived realities.” said Professor Lisa Dikomitis.
Professors Dikomitis and Shergill’s editorial is available to read here or you can listen to their podcast about Sikhs and mental health.