Rich and Jean-Charles survey mental health and the psychological professions in Haiti, opening with a compact portrait of the country: its racial and ethnic groups, its population and cities, and a history carrying both proud heritage and present standing as the hemisphere's poorest nation. Religion gets its own treatment — Catholic and Protestant Christianity alongside Vodou — as do crime, poverty, joblessness, substance misuse, and the weight of the 2010 earthquake and other disasters.

The chapter then follows behavioral health services from their origins to the current state of mental hospitals and psychiatric units, dwelling on how few psychiatrists, doctoral psychologists, and master's-level social workers there are, while noting growth in formal training programs and the stigma that still attaches to seeking care.

Considerable space goes to traditional healing, which matters most in rural areas where clinicians are hard to reach: the varieties of healer, and conditions bound to or shaped by culture. A closing section weighs challenges against opportunities.