This book published by the University of California Press in May 2019 is the result of the research project conducted a few years ago by anthropologist Katie Kilroy-Marac presently associate professor at the University of Toronto in Canada. During the 60’s and 70’s a French military psychiatrist, Dr Henri Collomb embarked on a transcultural psychiatric project blessed by late President Leoplod Sedar Senghor, one of the initiators of the Negritude movement. The main idea was to introduce traditional african mental disorder case management in the more western-influenced psychiatric modes of treatment applied in hospital units such as Hospital de Fann in order to take into account the socio-cultural and linguistic environments of patients.

Unfortunately the project was soon to be challenged and discontinued with the departure of the French medical doctor and the arrival of a young wave of psychiatrists trained in western universities.

The book shows all the loss incurred with the jettisoning of the national aesthetic which Senghor tried to consolidate for the new nation and based on the transcultural vision of the Senegalese first president.

The presentation took place at WARC on Wednesday October 16^th in the afternoon and was attended by 8 people.