The management of mental illness by traditional healers in Kom in the North West region of Cameroon.

Within the backdrop of a Health Culture in Kom that relegates clients with mental disorders to traditional healers, the researcher set out to explore “what is” in the families of mental traditional healers for those with mental illnesses. As they end up with traditional healers then it becomes significant that the researcher explores and describes their management. The researcher then uses snowball sampling to identify mental illness healers, used interviews, questionnaires, purposeful observation, and some 3 years retrospective documents to gather data. This led to discovering of 8 MHTH and 91 clients. This led to a discovery that the population believe in the effectiveness of their management. Disorders especially schizophrenia is managed with a goal to reduce the symptoms, usually with herbs an integral form of therapy is common. These findings can serve as a great donation to the field of clinical psychology. The study was concluded with consideration of the effectiveness of the MHTH in Kom and recommendations made towards preservations of herbs, intensification of psychotherapy and a need for gaining more insights into diagnosis by utilizing the achievements therein in other African approaches and Western World