In medicine and medical anthropology, a culture-bound syndrome, culture-specific syndrome, or folk illness is a combination of psychiatric (brain) and somatic (body) symptoms that are considered to be a recognizable disease only within a specific society or culture.
Full Answer
What is a culture-bound syndrome?
In medicine and medical anthropology, a culture-bound syndrome, culture-specific syndrome, or folk illness is a combination of psychiatric and somatic symptoms that are considered to be a recognizable disease only within a specific society or culture.
Is kufungisisa a culture-bound syndrome?
For example, in the DSM-5, it says that the culture-bound syndrome Kufungisisa (found among the Shona of Zimbabwe) is related to 6 different (Western) psychiatric diagnoses. Also, sometimes illnesses similar to a certain culture-bound syndrome are found in other cultures as well.
What are culture-specific syndromes?
the condition is usually recognized and treated by the folk medicine of the culture. Some culture-specific syndromes involve somatic symptoms (pain or disturbed function of a body part), while others are purely behavioral.
Is kaolin consumption a culture-bound syndrome in African Americans?
Within the contiguous United States, the consumption of kaolin, a type of clay, has been proposed as a culture-bound syndrome observed in African Americans in the rural south, particularly in areas in which the mining of kaolin is common.
What is a culture-bound syndrome?
Abstract. 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.
Which of the following is an example of a culture-bound syndrome?
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.
What is another term for culture-bound syndrome?
In medicine and medical anthropology, a culture-bound syndrome, culture-specific syndrome, or folk illness is a combination of psychiatric and somatic symptoms that are considered to be a recognizable disease only within a specific society or culture.
What are factors of culture-bound syndrome?
It is often seen as a result of family stress. It may most closely relate to a westernised diagnosis of panic disorder.
What are culture-bound syndromes and provide at least one example?
Culture-bound disorders may involve somatic expressions (e.g., temporary loss of consciousness or involuntarily clenched teeth), cognitions (e.g., a belief that one's genitals are retracting into the body or a conviction that one has been abducted by extraterrestrial beings), or behaviors (e.g., extreme startle ...
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).
How is culture-bound syndrome treated?
Suggested approaches, include psychotherapy, cognitive-behavioral interventions, relaxation techniques, and social skills development (Min, 2004). A community-based, culturally tailored nursing intervention is particularly effective in treating Hwa-Byung.
Is ADHD a culture-bound syndrome?
Due to this, ADHD can be argued to be a culture bound syndrome. A culture bound syndrome is defined as a “recurrent, locality-specific pattern of aberrant behavior and troubling experience” by the DSM-IV-TR(1). Generally, these syndromes occur in specific cultures.
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.
Why are culture-bound syndromes important?
Culture-bound syndromes provide a useful mirror for Western mental health professionals to examine their assumptions about the nature, diagnosis, and treatment of mental disorders. The DSM-IV-TR (American Psychiatric Association, 2000) defines and states the following about culture-bound syndromes.
Is anorexia nervosa a culture-bound syndrome?
Anorexia nervosa is presently considered a Western culture-bound syndrome. A cultural focus on dieting and ideals of thinness for women are assumed to be implicated in the disorder.
Are culture-bound syndromes in DSM-5?
In the fourth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV), these conditions were termed "culture-bound syndromes"; the fifth edition of the DSM (DSM-5) includes them under "Cultural Concepts of Distress." This updated approach is intended to more accurately characterize cultural ...
What is culture bound syndrome?
o Culture bound syndrome when a person becomes filled with anxiety that they are becoming a windigo ( fierce supernatural cannibal able to infect humans and make them into cannibalistic creatures).
What is Zar's behavior?
Possession by Zar is expressed by a wide range of behaviours, such as involuntary movements (often resembling epileptiform convulsions), mutism and incomprehensible language . Such behaviour can be misinterpreted as representing symptoms of neurologic or psychiatric disorders.
What is the Korean folk syndrome?
A Korean folk syndrome literally translated into English as "anger syndrome" and attributed to the suppression of anger. Symptoms include insomnia, fatigue, panic, fear of impending death, dysphoric affect, indigestion, anorexia, dyspnea, palpitations, generalized aches and pains, and a feeling of mass in the epigastrium.
What is culturally distinct phobia?
Refers to individual's intense fear that his or her body, its part or its functions, displease, embarrass, or are offensive to other people in appearance, odor, facial expressions, or movements.
What is a hypersensitivity?
Hypersensitivity to sudden fright, often w/ dissociative or trancelike behavior. Term is of Malaysian or Indonesian origin but syndrome found in many parts of world. In Malaysia, more frequent in middle-aged women.
What is the syndrome of a Portuguese?
Syndrome found among Portuguese Cape Verde Islanders (and immigrants from there to the US) and includes pain, numbness, tremor, paralysis, convulsions, stroke, blindness, heart attack, infection, and miscarriage.
What are the symptoms of a somatosis?
Inds also experience significant strains in key social roles. Symptoms may appear any time from days to years after fright is experienced. In extreme cases, may result in death. Typical symptoms include appetite disturbances, inadequate or excessive sleep, troubled sleep or dreams, feeling of sadness, lack of motivation and feelings of low self-worth or dirtiness. Somatic symptoms include muscle aches and pains, headache, stomachache, diarrhea. Ritual healings are focused on calling the soul back to body and cleansing the person to restore bodily and spiritual balance.
What is a culture bound syndrome?
In medicine and medical anthropology, a culture-bound syndrome, culture-specific syndrome, or folk illness is a combination of psychiatric and somatic symptoms that are considered to be a recognizable disease only within a specific society or culture. There are no objective biochemical or structural alterations of body organs or functions, ...
Why is culture bound syndrome controversial?
The term culture-bound syndrome is controversial since it reflects the different opinions of anthropologists and psychiatrists. Anthropologists have a tendency to emphasize the relativistic and culture-specific dimensions of the syndromes, while physicians tend to emphasize the universal and neuropsychological dimensions.
Why are culture bound syndromes acceptable?
an ataque de nervios at a funeral in Puerto Rico) to express distress in the wake of a traumatic experience.
What is the term for a behavior that can be attributed to certain behavior patterns within a specific culture?
More broadly, an endemic that can be attributed to certain behavior patterns within a specific culture by suggestion may be referred to as a potential behavioral epidemic. As in the cases of drug use, or alcohol and smoking abuses, transmission can be determined by communal reinforcement and person-to-person interactions. On etiological grounds, it can be difficult to distinguish the causal contribution of culture upon disease from other environmental factors such as toxicity.
What is the trance-like violent behavior of the Viking -age Berserkers?
The trance-like violent behavior of the Viking -age berserkers — behavior that disappeared with the arrival of Christianity — has been described as a culture-bound syndrome.
Is penis panic a culture-bound disease?
Some culture-bound syndromes appear with similar features in several cultures, but with locally specific traits, such as penis panics . A culture-specific syndrome is not the same as a geographically localized disease with specific, identifiable, causal tissue abnormalities, such as kuru or sleeping sickness, or genetic conditions limited ...
Is nature a neurological condition?
Its umbrella term nature as neurological condition also results in diagnosing neurotic patients as neurological ones, in effect substituting possible psychiatric stigma with culture-bound syndrome disguised as a neurological condition.
What is a Culture-Bound Syndrome?
The DSM-5 (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th edition), which is the official handbook of psychiatric disorders, calls these illnesses “cultural concepts of distress.” Culture-bound syndromes may also be referred to as “folk illnesses” or “culture-specific disorders.”
Where are cultures similar to Kufungisisa?
For example, illnesses similar to Kufungisisa have been found in parts of Africa, the Caribbean, and Latin America, along with some East Asian and Native American groups.
Does culture bound syndrome match up with any disorder?
And, a culture-bound syndrome does not match up exactly with any disorder listed in the DSM handbook. So, a culture-bound syndrome can involve parts of multiple different psychiatric diagnoses. For example, in the DSM-5, it says that the culture-bound syndrome Kufungisisa (found among the Shona of Zimbabwe) is related to 6 different (Western) psychiatric diagnoses.
Can culture bound syndromes be assimilated into the categories of mental illness?
Some people think that culture-bound syndromes can be assimilated into the categories of mental illness that Western biomedicine has created. Other people think that the Western categories of mental illness are just a product of Western culture and should not be applied to the illnesses of other cultures.
What is culture bound syndrome?
Most authors would agree that the term "culture-bound syndrome" was intended to describe forms of otherwise common mental illness that are rendered unusual because ...
What is the meaning of the term "syndrome"?
The term has become an anachronism, for the word, "syndrome," implies specific disease entities, not illnesses of attribution of idioms of distress.
Can CBSs be classified together?
Many authors have recommended that those CBSs that are "true" syndromes be classified together with their Western counterparts. In order to do this, the folk labels need to be put aside and the fundamental components of each disorder examined.
What is a culture bound disorder?
In medicine and medical anthropology, a culture-bound syndrome, culture-specific syndrome, or folk illness is a combination of psychiatric (brain) and somatic (body) symptoms that are considered to be a recognizable disease only within a specific society or culture. There are no objective biochemical or structural ...
Why is culture bound syndrome controversial?
The term culture-bound syndrome is controversial since it reflects the different opinions of anthropologists and psychiatrists.
Why has the emphasis on the expression of symptoms and sources of distress changed?
Rather than disorders being confined to specific cultures, the emphasis has changed to better recognition of the expression of symptoms and sources of distress within each culture in order to improve healthcare and treatment.
Is a culture specific syndrome purely behavioral?
Some culture-specific syndromes involve somatic symptoms (pain or disturbed function of a body part), while others are purely behavioral.
