This article provides a critical examination of the professional ideology associated with the expansion of psychiatric treatment in the ASEAN countries of Southeast Asia. Four components of professional ideology are identified: appeal to "modernization"; medicalization of social problems; integration of psychiatry with primary health care; and panhuman uniformity of mental illness. However, the adoption of psychiatric technology has been a significant factor in the erosion of indigenous systems of social and psychological support since the colonial period. Contemporary psychiatric practices are also shown to exacerbate social inequalities, enhance state control of the populace, and continue to operate without adequate validation of diagnoses and treatments.