The Social Construction of Mental Illness and Social Work Practice in Yoruba-Speaking South West Nigeria

Social constructionist analysis of mental illness reveals how lay and professional understandings of psychological distress are embedded in cultural, historical, and institutional contexts that profoundly shape social work practice and service utilisation in specific cultural settings. This doctoral study examines the social construction of mental illness in Yoruba-speaking communities of South West Nigeria and its implications for social work practice, drawing on data from Oyo, Osun, and Ondo States. An interpretivist social constructionist paradigm underpins the study, employing ethnographic field research including 12 months of participant observation, 55 narrative interviews with community members, traditional healers, mental health social workers, and religious care practitioners, and analysis of Yoruba oral traditions and media representations. Constructivist grounded theory and interpretive phenomenological analysis are applied. The study's original theoretical contribution is the construction of a Yoruba Mental Health Ontology, mapping the culturally specific conceptual terrain of psychological distress in Yoruba communities and its divergences from biomedical and social work diagnostic frameworks. The study argues that effective mental health social work in Yoruba communities requires cultural ontological literacy that is currently absent from professional training. Methodological contributions include pioneering extended ethnographic methods in Nigerian mental health social work research. Keywords: social construction, mental illness, social work, Yoruba culture, cultural ontology