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Communities have an important role to play when it comes to mental disorders. This was the unanimous view of experts who spoke at Geneva's Ecumenical Centre on Mental Health Day.
"With today's trends of massive migration and family systems breaking up, you can be alone even on the most crowded street," said Dr Manoj Kurian, World Council of Churches (WCC) programme executive for health and healing. Therefore, he reported, there is a big demand by church-related health workers "in the field" for strategies on how to deal with resulting mental health disorders.
These kind of problems are "best met by a team approach", he added, involving the faith communities as well as a person's professional and private networks.
Dr Claire Colliard, executive director of the Center for Humanitarian Psychology which provides psychological support to humanitarian field workers, also advocated for a community-oriented approach.
"Our goal is to get people back into relationships. Ater seeing horrors, most people tend to isolate themselves," she said.
Dr Adebisi Adebayo, of the Interafrican Committee on Harmful Traditional Practices against the Health of Women and Girls, reminded the audience that "in some parts of the world, there is a problem not so much because of too little interaction, but because in a small village, all the eyes are on you."
Adebayo explained how mental health problems are often closely associated with cultural expectations and stereotypes. She also highlighted that if a community rises up in support of a woman who has been raped, for example, problems such as depression can be avoided or mitigated.
One in four people worldwide are affected by mental health problems at some point in their lives. More than 75% of people suffering from mental disorders in the developing world receive no treatment or care, according to the World Health Organization.
Mental health will also be the focus of the next issue of the Contact magazine published by the WCC.
The 10 October seminar "Making Mental Health a Global Priority" was jointly organized by the NGO Forum for Health, the NGO Committee on the Status of Women and the WCC.
