Search

Cultural consonance is the degree to which individuals, in their own beliefs and behaviors, approximate widely shared cultural models. In previous research in Brazil and the United States we found that higher cultural consonance in the cultural domains of lifestyle and social support was associated with lower psychological distress. The aim of this paper is to expand on these results in two ways. First, the measurement of cultural consonance has been improved through a closer link of cultural domain analyses and survey research. Second, the number of domains in which cultural consonance has been examined has been expanded to include-along with lifestyle and social support-family life, national identity, and food. We found that cultural consonance in these five domains can be conceptualized as two latent variables of generalized cultural consonance, and that this generalized cultural consonance is associated with lower psychological distress. These results continue to support the usefulness of cultural consonance as a theoretical construct in the explanation of human social suffering. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While attention has been paid to the study of panic disorder (PD) with or without agoraphobia among Caucasians, surprisingly little empirical research within the United States has looked at the phenomenology of PD among minority groups. In this paper we present data we have collected and review other research on the phenomenology, social supports, and coping behavior among African-Americans with panic disorder. Our studies indicate that, in comparison to Caucasians, African-Americans with PD reported more intense fears of dying or going crazy, as well as higher levels of numbing and tingling in their extremities. African-Americans reported higher rates of comorbid post traumatic disorder and more depression. African-Americans also used somewhat different coping strategies (such as religiosity and counting one's blessings), less self-blame, and were somewhat more dissatisfied with social supports. The incidence of isolated sleep paralysis was, as per previous reports, higher in African-Americans. These findings, results of other research, and the implications for assessment and treatment are discussed within a semantic network analysis of panic (Hinton and Hinton 2002, this issue). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduces a series of articles on the state of knowledge about anxiety and panic disorders including its diagnostic formulation.

Despite a growing interest in bereavement in cross-cultural perspective, few reports have described a comparative analysis of bereavement. By examining the social contexts in the transformations of Western bereavement practices, structures common to bereavement in a range of cultures can be identified. The paper compares the contemporary bereavement practices of several ethnic and cultural groups in North America: Blacks; ethnic Chinese; Southeast Asian refugees; Haitians; Italians; Greeks; and Spanish-speaking groups. Consideration is given to the state of widowhood in different cultural systems. The impact of modernization among traditional societies demonstrates that even though Western technologies are incorporated into the procedures followed by these modernizing societies, the deep cultural code remains intact. Five questions require further clarification: is bereavement an illness, or a rite de passage and a normal life event? How widespread and useful are protective factors, such as group support, that facilitate successful resolution of grief? How effective are mourning practices of various ethnic groups in preventing "bad grief", and might some of these practices be beneficial if taken up by other ethnic groups? How can the Western health practitioner know that a bereaved person from an unfamiliar cultural group is suffering "bad grief"? How acceptable is Western grief counseling to non-Western clients? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A survey of the literature in medicine and in comparative education finds virtually no reports of systematic studies of professional education across national boundaries. This paper describes the use of the Priority Sort of Educational Objectives in Mental Health with samples of psychiatric and psychiatric nurse educators in the United States and South Korea. The data suggests a somewhat different pattern of cultural influences in professional education priorities between these disciplines in the two countries. The relative impact of the culture of a profession and of national culture are examined through the data generated on these populations of educators in two culturally dissimilar countries. Despite these differences of culture there has been a great impact of professional education from one country to the other. The resulting data suggest a stronger impact of professional culture with one profession, psychiatry, and a greater impact of national culture with the psychiatric nurse educators. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Standard psychiatric criteria for depression developed in the United States and United Kingdom are increasingly used worldwide to establish the prevalence of clinical disorders and to help develop services. However, these approaches are rarely sensitive to local and cultural expressions of symptoms or beliefs about treatment. Mismatch between diagnostic criteria and local understanding may result in underreporting of depression and underutilization of services. Little such research has been conducted in Malaysia, despite the acknowledged high rate of depression and low access to services. This study examines depression in Moslem Malay women living in Johor Bahru, Southern Peninsular Malaysia, to explore depression symptoms using the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV. The 61 women interviewed were selected on the basis of high General Health Questionnaire scores from a large questionnaire survey of 1,002 mothers. The illustrative analysis looks at descriptions of depressed mood, self-depreciation and suicidal ideation, as well as attitudes toward service use. The women gave full and open descriptions of their emotional symptoms, easily recognizable by standard symptom categories, although somatic symptoms were commonly included, and the spiritual context to understanding depression was also prevalent. However, few women had knowledge about treatment or sought medical services, although some sought help from local spiritual healers. Attending to such views of depression can help develop services in Malaysia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on ethnographic and survey research conducted by the author in a general population sample in mainland China, this article presents findings on Chinese women's midlife symptom reporting in comparison with pivotal studies conducted by Lock, Kaufert, and McKinlay in Japan, Canada, and the U.S. Analysis of the China survey data (N = 156 women, age 45-55) reveals for sixteen core symptoms a reporting frequency that is much lower than depicted in classic biomedical models of menopause. At the same time, however, the China data indicates problems with the popular extrapolation that midlife Asian women are virtually symptom-free compared to their North American peers. Finding the Chinese level of symptom-reporting low to moderate depending on the symptom, the article reveals important differences between Chinese and Japanese women in their level and pattern of symptom reporting, as well as substantial overlap with North American women in this regard. Referencing ethnographic materials on Chinese women and the cross-cultural literature on menopause, the article assesses potential explanations for the cross-cultural variation observed, including: local reproductive endocrinology, phytoestrogen consumption, aspects of East Asian culture, the nature of social change, the cultural acceptability of monitoring and voicing symptoms, and differences in dominant conceptions of midlife. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article aims to adduce a framework that will allow for the cross-cultural study of panic disorder. The authors take sensation as the key unit of analysis, aiming to contribute to a medical anthropology of sensation. The seven analytic perspectives that are suggested in the article are the following: the full spectrum of panic attack sensations (the sensation body), the biological generation of panic sensations (the biological body), sensation as invoking an ethnophysiology (the ethnophysiological body), sensation as metaphor (the metaphoric body), sensation as invoking the landscape (the landscape body), sensation as invoking catastrophic cognitions (the catastrophic cognitions body), and sensation as invoking memory (the memory-associational body). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reviews the historical development of the category of panic disorder in the United States, particularly the shifting perspectives on both what causes panic and how the presence of panic should be determined. The notion that panic attacks of a panic-disorder type must be "out of the blue" and "unexpected," except in the case of triggering by a particular place (i.e., agoraphobia), is critiqued. The authors illustrate that a meaningful epidemiological determination of panic rates in other cultural groups must be preceded by a detailed ethnography that ascertains the catastrophic cognitions, core symptoms, and typical cues of panic attacks in that particular context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay discusses three interpretive concepts that link bioscience and biotechnology to society: the medical imaginary, the biotechnical embrace, and the clinical narrative. Drawing on research carried out in the United States and internationally on the culture and political economy of biomedicine, the essay examines these interpretive concepts through examples from studies of patients, clinicians, scientists, and venture capitalists engaged in the worlds of oncology and high technology medicine. These interpretive concepts contribute to an understanding of how the affective dimensions of the experience of patients, clinicians and scientists invested in high technology medicine are fundamental to bioscience and biomedicine, and to the political economy and culture of hope. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Taijin Kyofusho or 'anthrophobia' is a Japanese culture-specific disgnostic label for the presenting problems of various fear reactions in interpersonal situations. The starting point of the present study was accumulating studies on Japanese cases of Taijin Kyofusho and the assertion in Japanese psychiatry that the symptom complex called Taijin kyofusho is Japanese culture-bound. In light of previous works on culture-bound disorders, the present study examines whether or not American mental health professionals could diagnose Japanese case descriptions of Taijin Kyofusho and what kinds of labels they applied to these Japanese cases. The results showed that American judges were able to diagnose Japanese cases nearly as well as American cases. However, there were considerable variability and inconsistency in their judgments of both the Japanese and American cases. The rate of disgnostic agreement dropped considerable as judges were asked to proceed from broad categories to specific categories. American judges grouped the Japanese cases of Taijin Kyofusho into a number of heterogeneous categories using labels such as paranoid schizophrenia, paranoid personality, phobic neurosis, and anxiety neurosis, among others. These results are discussed in terms of psychopathological diagnostic criteria and present conceptualization of culture-bound disorders, value judgments of mental health professionals, and the social contexts in which Taijin Kyofusho reactions occur. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Anthropologists have discerned three seizure syndromes among the Navajo Indians. Ichaa with generalized seizures is thought to be caused by incest and carries with it a stigmatized social role. Frenzy witchcraft is characterized by fugue states and since it is thought to be caused by witchcraft carries a neutral role. Hand-trembling is considered to be a sign of shamanistic proclivity and is a potentially rewarding role. We identified all residents of two Navajo reservation service units admitted to Public Health Service hospitals between 1962 and 1964 with the diagnosis of epilepsy or hysterical seizures. Despite the concern with seizure syndromes among the Navajo, we were unable to demonstrate an excess prevalence of epilepsy or hysteria among them. The hysterics were more likely to display psychomotor or hand-trembling seizures (neutral or rewarded seizure patterns) than the epileptics; this association, however, was statistical and the symptom patterns of the patients did not fit the 'classical' anthropological descriptions. Epileptics did have a higher rate of death, drunkenness and crime than the hysterical patients, perhaps as a result of their stigmatized role, but they also had a chronic condition while the hysterics after eleven years of follow-up were free of their original symptoms. Hand-trembling patients who became shaman-like diagnosticians did not benefit from this socialization of their symptom and left the profession. In short, epilepsy and hysteria manifest themselves on the Navajo reservation with a frequency and pattern not strikingly different for the Western observer. Though the force of cultural factors can be discerned, their effect is to produce variations on a general human theme - not a dramatically new composition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]