EDITORS' I N T R O D U C T I O N IntroductionOver the past three decades the illness explanatory model framework has stimulated research in clinically applied medical anthropology, guided clinical training, sparked controversy in the health social sciences and guided developments in the field of cultural psychiatry. This formulation of explanatory models was conceived both to advance perspectivism in clinical medical practice and public health, and to show how ethnomedical study of sickness and medicine should contribute to cultural anthropology and social analysis. The appeal of the explanatory model framework for clinical training is based on the premise that it is important to examine relationships and consequences of interactions between patients' ideas about their health problems and those of clinicians and professionals who are responsible for their care. Although the clinical interests and applications of illness explanatory models extend to all aspects of medicine, it was mainly experience and interest in psychiatry andTextbook of Cultural Psychiatry, Dinesh Rhugra and Kamaldeep Bhui (eds.).