Comments on: Culture and Mental Illness?

Question: Culture and Mental Illness?

Dance Commander — Sun, 23 Apr 2006 14:32:25 -0800

Where can I find out more about superstitious beliefs and mental illness on a more global level?

The idea of how other cultures perceive mental illness has always fascinated me, and I have read a little bit about it in doing research for other topics. However, now that I am actively trying to seek this out, I can't seem to find anything. :\

Anything having to do with psychology and other cultures is what I really want to read up on, but anything that focuses more on superstition would be what I'm looking for.

I've tried google and google scholar, but I'm not even sure what terms to look for. Mental illness, world, superstition and attitudes have not actually yielded as much information as I would have thought.

So I guess my question is this - Where should I be looking? What terms should I be using? Any other personal anecdotes would be cool, too.

By: docgonzo

docgonzo — Sun, 23 Apr 2006 14:41:45 -0800

Medical anthropology is the field you're looking for, in my opinion. The Society for Medical Anthropology site has some good stuff; Brown's "Understanding and applying medical anthropology" is a good start, suitable for non-anthropologists. (I took a med anthro course last year -- loved it -- and I'm a biologist-in-training, so Brown's book doesn't need a lot of pre-installed knowledge.)

In the popular literature, Wade Davis' The serpent and the rainbow is very good, imho. He trained as an ethnobotanist at Harvard; the book is the story of his trip to Haiti to investigate the organic, social and cultural explanations for zombie-ism in the Voudon (voodoo) religion.

By: j-dawg

j-dawg — Sun, 23 Apr 2006 15:35:30 -0800

Arthur Kleinman is one of the leaders in this field. His work would be a great place to start.

By: Yeomans

Yeomans — Sun, 23 Apr 2006 16:53:55 -0800

You have to be thinking 'superstition' when you read it, but Michel Foucault's Madness and Civilization is a good place to start.

By: Bryan Behrenshausen

Bryan Behrenshausen — Sun, 23 Apr 2006 17:56:04 -0800

Second the Foucault recommendation. See also Mental Illness and Psychology.

By: gilsonal

gilsonal — Sun, 23 Apr 2006 19:04:33 -0800

well i'm not sure what terms you could use specifically, but in many cultures, what we call mental illness is a sign of a spiratual gift. hallucinations, dissociative states and even manic episodes can be seen as communication from the gods/spirits whatever, and the people are honored rather than denigrated.

By: mediareport

mediareport — Mon, 24 Apr 2006 00:54:06 -0800

What terms should I be using?

Former medical anthropology grad student here; try searching for "folk beliefs"+"mental illness" or "folk illness" or "folk medicine"+"mental illness" or various combinations of phrases like "folk taxonomy," "lay concepts" and "mental illness." That should land you right in the thick of things.

By: maryh

maryh — Mon, 24 Apr 2006 01:30:43 -0800

You might want to try googling "culture-bound syndrome", too.

By: luneray

luneray — Mon, 24 Apr 2006 08:47:08 -0800

Does epilepsy count as mental illness? If it does for your purposes, then you might find The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down an interesting read. It's the story of a culture clash between the folk beliefs of an immigrant community and Western medicine with tragic results.

By: 9000.68

9000.68 — Tue, 25 Apr 2006 08:45:35 -0800

Did you see the Exorcism of Emily Rose? I don't know if the anthropologist (or psychologist?) in the movie was based on a real person. But she argued in court that "demon posession" was a cross cultural explanation for certain mental illnesses. The movie is based on an exorcism in the 1970s in Germany.

And, the book Desert Solitaire by Edward Abbey is one example I can think of telling a story that mental illness can only exist in relation to a society. Um, in other words, you can only be mentally ill if you are in a group of people to compare yourself with. If you are by yourself you are just you.

I am not a writer.