is koro a culture bound syndrome

What is a koro disorder?

Koro is a culture bound delusional disorder in which an individual has an overpowering belief that their sex organs are retracting and will disappear, despite the lack of any true longstanding changes to the genitals. Koro is also known as shrinking penis, and it is listed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders .

What is the meaning of Koro?

Koro is believed to be a culture-bound syndrome which is characterized by the fear that a vital body part is retracting into the body and will cause death eventually. Most of the ancient literature that documented cases of Koro are related to old Chinese ethnic group.

What are the diagnostic criteria for koro syndrome?

The primary criteria for the determination of Koro syndrome in the complaint of genital shrinkage by a patient even though there are no visible physical changes. Another measure is anxiety and fear of death due to the perceived genital reduction. Other patients who do not exhibit the all required symptoms are said to have koro-like symptoms.

What is the difference between Kuru virus and koro syndrome?

People often mistake the Koro syndrome for the Kuru virus ( laughing death disease), but they are both different things that are unrelated in any way. The Koro syndrome involves a spurious feeling that some human body parts like the penis, breasts, or vulva are retracting into the body.

What type of disorder is koro?

Koro syndrome is a psychiatric disorder characterised, in its typical form, by acute and intense anxiety, with complaints in men of a shrinking penis or fear of its retraction into the abdomen and resultant death. Initially the syndrome was described as a culture specific disorder in Southeast Asia and China.

What are some examples of culture-bound syndromes?

Culture-bound syndromes include, among others, amok, amurakh, bangungut, hsieh-ping, imu, jumping Frenchmen of Maine syndrome, koro, latah, mal de pelea, myriachit, piblokto, susto, voodoo death, and windigo psychosis. Also called culture-specific syndrome.

Why is koro culture-bound?

Koro is a culture bound delusional disorder in which individuals have an overpowering belief that their sex organs are retracting and will disappear, despite the lack of any true longstanding changes to the genitals....Koro (medicine)KoroOther namesGenital retraction syndrome, shrinking penisSpecialtyPsychiatry

What are culture-bound syndromes?

Culture-bound syndrome is a broad rubric that encompasses certain behavioral, affective and cognitive manifestations seen in specific cultures. These manifestations are deviant from the usual behavior of the individuals of that culture and are a reason for distress/discomfort.

Is hikikomori a culture-bound syndrome?

Cases of hikikomori are often, but not always, classifiable as a variety of existing DSM-IV-TR (or ICD-10) psychiatric disorders. Hikikomori may be considered a culture-bound syndrome.

Is obesity a culture-bound syndrome?

One can in fact retain use of the biological data while analyzing biomedicine, which is understood to include cultural components. Mild-to-moderate obesity in the U.S. today fits the proposed definition of a culture-bound syndrome.

Is amok a culture-bound syndrome?

Running amok is considered a rare culture-bound syndrome by current psychiatric classification systems, but there is evidence that it occurs frequently in modern industrialized societies.

What specific cultural belief may contribute to men experiencing koro in certain cultures?

Sociocultural and Individual Differences Koro arises from the belief about the retraction of the sexual organs (including penis, breast, nipples) into the body which leads to eventual death.

Is koro a mental illness?

The koro syndrome is a psychiatric disorder characterized by acute anxiety and a deep-seated fear of shrinkage of the penis and its ultimate retraction into the abdomen, which will cause death.

Is PTSD a culture-bound syndrome?

When put into context PTSD becomes a culture and history bound syndrome. It emerges in a war weary Europe dealing with the horrors of mechanised warfare a century ago. While European nations had waged war in the past, this four year long conflict was more brutal than ever seen before.

Is depression a culture-bound syndrome?

Psychiatry must recognize the cultural causes of depression and make cultural expertise an essential element of its therapeutic arsenal. Depression is a culture-bound syndrome. It is also a terrible real disease.

Is bulimia nervosa a culture-bound syndrome?

Some researchers have argued that eating disorder diagnoses such as anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa are culture-bound syndromes motivated by Western ideals of thinness, while others have emphasized the substantial biological and genetic components to eating disorders.

What are some of the physical symptoms associated with culture bound syndromes?

Symptoms include attacks of crying, trembling, uncon- trollable shouting, physical or verbal aggression, and intense heat in the chest moving to the head. These ataques are often associated with stressful events (e.g., death of a loved one, divorce or separation, or witnessing an accident including a family member).

Is depression a culture bound syndrome?

Psychiatry must recognize the cultural causes of depression and make cultural expertise an essential element of its therapeutic arsenal. Depression is a culture-bound syndrome. It is also a terrible real disease.

How does culture affect mental health?

Culture significantly impacts various aspects of mental health including the perception of health and illness, treatment-seeking behaviour and coping styles. As such, simplified mainstreaming of mental health approaches may not cater to the needs of a culturally diverse population from different communities.

What is Susto in psychology?

The accepted definition of susto is "soul loss through magical. fright"3 or simply "fright."4 The symptoms include depression, listlessness, weakness, loss of appetite, loss of interest in personal. appearance, and restlessness during sleep which, in combination.

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Authors and Affiliations

Department of Psychiatry, University of California at Los Angeles School of Medicine, Harbor General/UCLA Medical Center, Torrance, California, USA

Editors and Affiliations

Medical Center, University of California at Irvine, Orange, California, USA

What are the causes of koro?from en.wikipedia.org

Causes. Psychosexual conflicts, personality factors, and cultural beliefs are considered as being of etiological significance to koro. Sexual adjustment histories of non-Chinese victims are often significant, such as premorbid sex inadequacy, sexual promiscuity, guilt over masturbation, and impotence.

What is the primary criteria for koro?from en.wikipedia.org

The primary criteria is a patient's report of genital (typically penile or female nipple) retraction despite a lack of objective physical evidence demonstrating retraction.

What is Koro delusional disorder?from en.wikipedia.org

Koro is a culture bound delusional disorder in which an individual has an overpowering belief that their sex organs are retracting and will disappear, despite the lack of any true longstanding changes to the genitals.

What is Koro medicine?from en.wikipedia.org

Koro (medicine) Not to be confused with Kuru (disease). Koro is a culture bound delusional disorder in which an individual has an overpowering belief that their sex organs are retra cting and will disappear, despite the lack of any true longstanding changes to the genitals.

When was Koro first discovered?from en.wikipedia.org

At least three publications of the 1880s, from US, Russia and England, reported genital retraction pathology, without using the Malay or Chinese term. Koro epidemics in China were first noticed in a French report in 1908 and descriptions of koro entered clinical books of western medicine in 1936. In the 1950s, koro is noted in nosological and diagnostic psychiatry.

What is the ghost story in Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio about?from en.wikipedia.org

The novel about ghost stories Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio describes a fox spirit which can make people weak physically and sexually and shrink their tissues. Belief in koro being caused by the fox ghost among the southern Chinese has been reported.

Where did the word Koro come from?from en.wikipedia.org

The earliest Western reference to the term koro is found in B.F. Matthes' Dictionary of Buginese Language (1874) of South Sulawesi, Indonesia. The name could be derived from a river, its surrounding valley, and a local tribe of the same name which is located at northwestern sector of Sulawesi, Indonesia. The word is also used in Makassarese language, meaning "to shrink"; the full expression is garring koro. Koro may also be derived from Malay term Kura which means "head of turtle" or keruk which means "to shrink". The term shuk yang (缩阳), adapted from Chinese, means "the shrinkage of penis". The term koro is also known as rok loo (genital shrinkage disease) in Thailand, jinjinnia bemar in Assam, India, and lanuk e laso by the Bogoba tribe in Philippines.

What is Koro syndrome?

People often mistake the Koro syndrome for the Kuru virus ( laughing death disease), but they are both different things that are unrelated in any way.

What is the psychological effect of Koro syndrome?

The psychological effect of the koro syndrome is the fear of impending death, fear that a victim is changing into a eunuch, the fear of sexual inactivity and powerlessness, and sometimes the fear of gender change.

How long does koro syndrome last?

When victims notice this shrinkage when they come in contact with cold temperature, they begin to panic and imagine that the condition is irreversible. Symptoms can last between two hours to two days, but in cases of chronic koro syndrome, symptoms continue for years.

What is the name of the cold Qi invasion?

The ancient Chinese medical literature described the koro syndrome as “Yin type of cold qi invasion” that is characterised by a sudden seizure during coitus with the penis running back into the abdomen. The book claimed that a patient of Koro syndrome would die if not treated with “heaty” medication in time.

What is koro in Chinese?

While Koro is a Malaysian word, the Chinese call it Shuk yang. An example of koro documentation in Chinese history can be found in the old medicine book titled the New collection of remedies of value which was published during the Qing dynasty.

Is Koro syndrome rare?

Some you might have heard of, some you are yet to heard or read about, and others you might never get to know about because of their rarity. Koro syndrome is one of those rare psychological conditions.

Is Koro syndrome easily diagnosed?

Diagnosis. Koro is easily diagnosed. The primary criteria for the determination of Koro syndrome in the complaint of genital shrinkage by a patient even though there are no visible physical changes. Another measure is anxiety and fear of death due to the perceived genital reduction.

What is culture bound syndrome?

The term ‘culture-bound syndromes’ conju res up images of rare and exotic psychiatric disorders, and indeed many disorders are described as culture-bound syndrome s. However, there are difficulties with the term because the disorders it is applied to are often not distinct disease entities and are not strictly culture-bound, occurring in multiple cultures. The culture-bound syndromes therefore include a heterogenous group of phenomena, some of which are true syndromes, some culturally based aetiologic explanations for psychiatric disorders, and others, folk terms for common behaviours or emotions, otherwise known as ‘idioms of distress’ (Levine & Gaw 1995 ). According to Littlewood (1990), the term ‘culture-bound’ was applied to local patterns of behaviour that did not fit into the Western psychiatric classifications. Littlewood also suggests that the term is redundant because all reactions are to an extent culturally determined. Patterns characteristic of Western societies, such as overdoses and anorexia nervosa, are as culture-bound as any others.

What are the cultural meanings of Koro?

Cultural meanings have been offered to explain individual and mass episodes of Koro. For example, Bartholomew (1994) argued that Koro is “a rational attempt at problem-solving that involves conformity dynamics, perceptual fallibility, and the local acceptance of koro-associated folk realities” (p. 46). Gwee (1985) offers the interpretation that Koro is an “acute hysterical panic reaction, brought on by auto- or hetero-suggestion and conditioning by the cultural background” (p. 159). The indigenous ethnographic literature describes Koro attacks as “unpredictable, but [they] usually appear after a shock which made the patient anxious or frightened, after performing strenuous manual labor or no labor at all, or as a result of immoderate nocturnal partying” ( Edwards, 1985, p. 171). The etiology is attributed to nonconformity with community norms in the cultural context of competitiveness. In Chinese societies, these fears are associated with beliefs about sexual activities. Suoyang appears as “a product of intra- and inter-personal violations of medico-sexual regulations” (Edwards, p. 183).

What are the strategies used to study symptomatology?

These strategies continue to be relevant today, and include matching diagnoses (i.e., comparing patients from different cultures with similar diagnoses), matching samples (i.e., comparing patients from different cultures who are similar in age, social class, religion, etc.), conducting international surveys (i.e., profiling symptoms across large samples from many different countries), studying culture-specific syndromes with indigenous approaches (i. e., investigating culture-specific patterns of disorders such as latah, koro, susto, amok ), and performing multivariate analyses (i.e., generating symptom clusters based on statistical analyses rather than clinical perceptions and experiences).

What is the koro of oedipal castration?

For the theorists of psychoanalysis, koro served as the concrete example of Oedipal castration anxiety, while some Chinese authors like Yap saw in suo-yang the paradigm of a true culture-bound syndrome, assuming that the disorder itself was generated by the suggestive effect of traditional Chinese concepts.

Where did the word Koro originate?

Koro was believed to originate from the Malay word koro which means “shrink.”. An alternative source is from the word kura which means a tortoise. The “head of the tortoise” is often used as an ...

What is the etiology of Suoyang?

Suoyang appears as “a product of intra- and inter-personal violations of medico-sexual regulations ” (Edwards, p. 183).

Why is the term "culture bound" redundant?

Littlewood also suggests that the term is redundant because all reactions are to an extent culturally determined. Patterns characteristic of Western societies, such as overdoses and anorexia nervosa, are as culture-bound as any others. The following are some of the common conditions described under this heading: •.

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Abstract

Koro was first reported in Western medical press in 1895. The original oriental culture-bound 'Koro' is now referred to as 'genital retraction syndrome' in the global literature. During this span of a century, the primary cultural etiological focus of Koro has also shifted towards the concept of disordered body-image perception.

What is Koro syndrome?

Koro is considered to be a cultural-bound syndrome, characterised by the belief of retraction of the genitals into the abdomen and is associated with anxiety symptoms [1-3]. It has been commonly reported from India and other Southern Asian countries.

Who examined the patients, treated, followed up, conceptualised, did literature survey and wrote the paper?

NK examined the patients, treated, followed up, conceptualised, did literature survey and wrote the paper.

Is Koro a chronic condition?

While the issues concerning phenomenology, diagnosis and nosology of koro are still being discussed [5,6,10], it is apparent that koro, which presents both sporadically and in epidemics as an acute anxiety state, may also have a chronic form. In contrast to acute, good prognosis, psycho-education responsive form that is usually seen in epidemics; the chronic form, appears to be sporadic with greater morbidity, and with poorer response to interventions.

Is Koro a chronic disease?

The underlying dynamics resulting in chronicity of symptoms of koro are not clear. It is possible, as observed before [11], that many psychiatric symptoms that share a similar 'surface grammar' differ in their 'deep grammar' or structure. Though the index cases suggest that koro can be chronic, with a poorer prognosis;

Is Koro a psychotic disorder?

The findings in these index cases are supported by the view that individual koro patients exhibit a symptomatology indicative of major psychiatric conditions (i.e. psychosis or affective disorder), and appear unrelated to collective episodes which involve social, cultural, cognitive and physiological factors in the diffusion of koro-related beliefs [6]. A sporadic case of koro was reported to be associated with psychotic depression [8].

Is Koro a culture bound disease?

Koro is a culture bound syndrome, which has been reported usually from Asian countries. It has been described as an acute, brief lasting illness, which often occurs in epidemics. There is no description in literature of a chronic form of this syndrome. Case presentation. Two sporadic cases with koro-like symptoms from East India are presented ...

Abstract

Koro is a culture bound syndrome, which has been reported usually from Asian countries. It has been described as an acute, brief lasting illness, which often occurs in epidemics. There is no description in literature of a chronic form of this syndrome.

Acknowledgements

Written consent was obtained from the patients for publication of the patients' details. Department of Psychiatry, Mental Health Institute, Cuttack, India and Quality of Life Research and Development Foundation supported the study in part.

Author information

Wolverhampton Primary Care Trust, Corner House Resource Centre, 300, Dunstall Road, Wolverhampton, WV6 0NZ, United Kingdom

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Open Access This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd.

What Is Koro Syndrome?

History of Koro Syndrome

• Koro is believed to be a culture-bound syndromewhich is characterized by the fear that a vital body part is retracting into the body and will cause death eventually. Most of the ancient literature that documented cases of Koro are related to old Chinese ethnic group. While Koro is a Malaysian word, the Chinese call it Shuk yang. An example of koro ...

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Causes of Koro Syndrome

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