First of all, the term culture-related specific psychiatric conditions is more accurate than cultural-bound. The idea is that certain regions have certain disorders that are exclusive to their area. One example would be amok. If you have ever heard the term running amok (a muck) and witnessed a person going wild, the term would make sense. One of the first records of the disorder was from the Malay people in the Malaysian region. It is where people would run frantically after others, charging them in acts of violence. Despite what was believed, this is not exclusive to this area because reports have been given in Indonesia, Britain, and even in the United States (in schools and workplaces) (Tseng, 2006). Throughout history, savage pirates would charge people and kill masses in attempts of looting and rioting. Others would do it for political reasons as acts of terrorism. Later on, after laws were put in place to punish those who did this, there were more reports of people who did not do it voluntarily but because of a psychological disorder. According to Tseng, “Cultural influences on psychiatric syndromes can occur in at least six distinct ways (Tseng, 2001): (1) pathogenic effect (cultural influence on the formation of a disorder); (2) psychoselective effect (culture selecting certain coping patterns to deal with stress); (3) psychoplastic effect (culture modifying the clinical manifestation); (4) pathoelaborating effect (culture elaborating mental conditions into a unique nature); (5)psychofacilitating effect (culture promoting the frequency of occurrence); or (6) psychoreactive effect (culture shaping folk responses to the clinical condition)” (Tseng, 2006). This tells us that whether or not something is considered to be a mental disorder or a social behavior depends on the evolution of culture norms. There once was a time where people followed their own beliefs, regardless what the law said. Now, people, for the most part, believe it is right to follow the rules, and anyone who does not, is uncivilized and possibly, mentally afflicted. How many cases have been reviewed of criminals (murders)? The answer is a lot. People like to study a person who commits crimes against society because these people are breaking the boundaries of normal behavior. Few people study the psyche of people who do extraordinarily good things (Jesus, Martin Luther King Jr., etc.) This again shows that being abnormal is not always a bad thing; it just depends on the circumstances and culture. Another example would be Latah disorder. It has been described as a person (usually woman) breaking out into uncontrollable laughter, dancing, cursing, and screaming. In today’s radical Church practices, they have begun what has become to be known as the holy laughter movement. Here, it is deemed to be something brought on by the Holy Spirit of God, and in term of Latah, it was considered a demonic possession to a certain extent. It just depends on what the culture values and deems “normal”. Throughout history, there have been cases where women fainted after experiencing high levels of stress, surprises, etc. Today, women are thought of as more independent (in the United States at least) and not feeble creatures who easily become faint at the least little thing. As time changes and more people are included in an equal society, there are fewer epidemics of conditions because people’s minds do not have to find ways to cope with these events any longer. What is normal depends on culture and the evolving of that culture. With the connection of the internet and other ways to see what’s going on around the world, certain cultures may get the chance to see new perspectives, thus changing individuals, even if the culture as a whole has not or not yet changed. There are no culture bound conditions anymore because too many people share similar experiences world-wide, respond differently do to individuality, and the fact that people are no longer bound to one culture. References: Tseng, W.S. (2006). From Peculiar Psychiatric Disorders through Culture-bound Syndromes to Culture-related Specific Syndromes. Transcultural Psychiatry, 43(4), 554-576. doi:10.1177/1363461506070781
Posted on: Fri, 10 Oct 2014 01:43:15 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015