Home - Mental Health Race And Culture (mhrac)

Welcome to the personal website of

Suman Fernando

psychiatrist, academic and writer

I was a consultant psychiatrist (now retired) in the British National Health Service for over twenty years until the mid-1990s. Since then I have been an academic, a writer and an advisor on mental health practice and service provision. I was a member of the Mental Health Act Commission (a government inspectorate) for several years until 1995 where I chaired its National Standing Committee on Race and Culture. I am involved in voluntary organisations (NGOs) providing mental health services for people from minority ethnic ('racialised') groups in the UK and also for people in Sri Lanka. Here is a list of my appointments (click to see).

My main occupation now is in writing, lecturing, teaching in UK and Canada (click here for publications). I have been involved in capacity building work in Sri Lanka (click here for more..) and in researching issues around mental health and mental health provision in Middle- & Low-income countries - click here for a paper written in 2005 and here for another (2009)

I welcome comment on materials (via 'contact us') but please do NOT write to me requesting clinical consulations as I do not undertake such work any more.

Note that Inquiry into 'Schizophrenia' (ISL) (CLICK) is being analysed - CLICK HERE to see Preliminary Findings

Master Classes in Mental Health-flyer

Master Class 1 (5 Oct)

Film Link to vimeo; Click here for ppt slides; Click here for list of references
Click here for transcript of talk

Master Class 2 (19 Oct)

Film link to vimeo; click here for ppt slides; click here for references
Click here for transcript of talk

Master Class 3 (2 Nov)

Film link to vimeo; Click here for slides; Click here for references
Click here for transcript of talk

Master Class 4 (16 Nov)

Film Link to vimeo; Click here for slides;

Master Class 5 (7 Dec postponed from 30 Nov)

Film link to vimeo; Click here for slides; Click here for list of references
Click here for transcript of talk

Master Class 6 (14 Dec)

Film Link to vimeo; Click here for slides;

Global Mental Health' Movement is very contraversial. if canbe construed as a form of imperialism associated with finding markets for Big pharma. CLICK HERE to see article in Openmind.
CLICK HERE to see letter that he journal Nature declined to publish

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

Who am I ?

I used to be at the European Centre for Migration & Social Care (MASC) at University of Kent. Now, my main (honoray) attachement is: Professor in the Faculty of Social Sciences & Humanities at London Metropolitan University. More...

My main book is Mental Health Race and Culture now in it's third (entirely revised) edition ...more

Click to listen to podcast of interview on this book

Click here for a list of my recent publications.