Culture and Psychopathology Revisited
Culture December 2, 2021 Wolfgang G. Jilek 1 citation
Cultural factors can cause mental illness, especially during rapid social change. Specific conditions arise in different groups: anomic depression among North American Indians and transient psychotic reactions (bouffée délirante) among Africans. Beliefs in witchcraft and sorcery often shape psychotic symptoms in marginalized Africans and tradition-bound Southern Europeans. So-called culture-bound syndromes emerge, transform, and spread epidemically under shifting socioeconomic and political conditions. Ritualized possession, trance states, and religious rituals should be distinguished from psychopathological phenomena to avoid Eurocentric and positivistic errors in psychiatric diagnosis.