Kelly connects with Dr. Khameer Kidia, a writer, physician, and anthropologist at Harvard Medical School and University of Zimbabwe. A Rhodes Scholar and 2023 New America Fellow, Dr. Kidia has worked on global mental health research, practice, and advocacy for the last decade.  He has a new book, “Empire of Madness: A Physician’s Case for Reimagining Global Mental Health.” 

You open the book on a bench, under a tree in Zimbabwe where a grandmother is talking to a younger woman. What is happening in this scene? 

“So, this is a scene from the friendship bench, which is this intervention that was developed by a psychiatrist from Zimbabwe, Dixon Chibanda, a friend of mine, brilliant, brilliant guy, who saw the emotional and psychological toll that the political and economic environment was having on folks in Zimbabwe where at one stage in the early 2000s, the prevalence of depression, anxiety, and those kinds of common mental disorders was greater than 30%. So much greater than we would expect. And he designed these benches that go outside of clinics, somewhere shady, in public so everyone can see that this is happening. It’s not something hidden away. And on these benches, he trained grandmothers, many of them illiterate, to deliver basic cognitive behavioral therapy in six sessions. And he did that with them in concert. They came up with the principles and idioms that they would use to address those mental health problems that were local to Zimbabwe. For example, folks in Zimbabwe don’t say, ‘I’m depressed’ or ‘I’m anxious.’ They say, ‘Kufungisisa – I am thinking too much.’ And so, these are like natural idioms that people use to express their distress. And the grandmothers felt like these would be far more appropriate than some of the psychiatric terms that Dixon was asking them to use. And he listened to what they were saying.” 

You talk about a reframe of mental illness and I just had a conversation where I told my friend I was 80% fine and 20% filled with existential dread. 

“Yeah, you know, I think a lot of mental distress, I want to reframe away from the idea of pathology or abnormality. Because I think that that can be a very alienating framing for the way that folks kind of think about their mental distress. Instead, if you think about all that is going on in the world right now and how awful it is, feeling 20 % existential dread, that sounds very, very normal to me. That is a normal reaction to some toxic, toxic circumstances.” 

I know in my experience in medicine, being able to Yes, And with my caregivers was absolutely crucial in my care. 

“I think that’s very powerful. And I wanted to share that I have encountered ‘Yes, And’ before in my medical training. It was something that was taught to us by an incredible mentor of mine who is this expert in like patient doctor communication. And her name is Amy Ship and she was my program director at Brigham. And She taught us about ‘Yes, And’ – and it taught us how to take ‘Yes, And’ into our patient encounters. And it totally changes the whole experience of being with someone and sitting with them. It transforms the very kind of hierarchical relationship between patient and doctor to just come down to the same level and say: I’m here for you.” 

Photo Credit: The Light Committee 2025