This book brings together research, intervention experiences, and theoretical-methodological perspectives that incorporate social markers of difference – such as race, gender, social class, generation, and territory – and their symbolic, historical, and sociopolitical dimensions into discussions on culture, care, and mental health. By articulating these different approaches, the work highlights the centrality of cultural care in contemporary psychosocial care, emphasizing its importance for the development of more equitable, sensitive, and responsive practices that address the specificities of individuals and the territories in which they live.

Cultural Care, Mental Health, and Psychosocial Care is an original formulation that names a set of emerging experiences in the Global South – notably in Brazil and in other Latin American and Caribbean contexts – that integrate popular and community knowledge with technical expertise to address the processes of social determination of mental health. These experiences bear the marks of the societies and territories in which they are formed: colonial and multicultural histories, social inequalities, and health inequities. At the same time, they are shaped by social and political movements advocating for rights, which foster the production and recognition of situated and shared forms of care within the living environments of populations.

The result is a book that offers health professionals, researchers, students, and public health policymakers a set of innovative insights and perspectives from different regions of Brazil and Latin American countries such as Uruguay, Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Panama, and Nicaragua. This work provides critical and culturally sensitive contributions to the field of mental health and psychosocial care, fostering interprofessional and intersectoral dialogues and supporting the transformation of care practices.

The original manuscript of this book was written in Portuguese and Spanish and translated into English with the help of artificial intelligence. A subsequent human revision was done primarily in terms of content.

Magda Dimenstein is Full Professor in the Graduate Program in Psychology at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte (UFRN) and at the Federal University of Delta do Parnaíba (UFDPAR), both in Brazil. She holds a PQ1-A research productivity grant from the Brazilian National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq). Graduated in Psychology from the Federal University of Pernambuco (UFPE), she holds Master's degree in Clinical Psychology from the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro (PUC/RJ), and a PhD in Mental Health from the Institute of Psychiatry at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ). She completed a Post-Doctorate in Mental Health at the Universidad Alcalá de Henares, Spain, and in Collective Health at the Graduate Program in Public Health at the Federal University of Ceará (UFC), Brazil. She works in the area of Collective Health with an emphasis on Mental Health, Primary and Psychosocial Care. She conducts research into social inequalities, ethnic-racial vulnerabilities, inequalities in health care and cultural care in mental health. She is a member of the research group Modes of Subjectivation, Public Policies and Contexts of Vulnerability at UFRN and of the working group Subjectivation Policies and the Invention of Everyday Life of the Brazilian National Association of Research and Graduate Studies in Psychology (ANPEPP).

Ana Carolina Rio Simoni is Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology and in the Graduate Program in Psychology at Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte (UFRN), Brazil. Graduated in Psychology from the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS), she holds a Master's degree and a PhD in Education from UFRGS. She was coordinator of the State Policy on Mental Health, Alcohol and Other Drugs in Rio Grande do Sul in 2014. She worked as a manager in the State Health Department of Rio Grande do Sul between 2011 and 2018, implementing the Psychosocial Care Network/Mental Health Care Line, Policies to Promote Equity in the Brazilian Unified Health System (SUS) and Permanent Health Education processes. She is a member of the research group Modes of Subjectivation, Public Policies and Contexts of Vulnerability at UFRN, and is editor-in-chief of the journal Estudos de Psicologia (Natal).