Cultural Conceptions of Mental Health and Therapy (Culture, Illness and Healing, Volume 4)

Within the past two decades, there has been an increased interest in the study of culture and mental health relationships. This interest has extended across many academic and professional disciplines, including anthropology, psychology, sociology, psychiatry, public health and social work, and has resulted in many books and scientific papers emphasizing the role of sociocultural factors in the etiology, epidemiology, manifestation and treatment of mental disorders. It is now evident that sociocultural variables are inextricably linked to all aspects of both normal and abnormal human behavior. But, in spite of the massive accumulation of data regarding culture and mental health relationships, sociocultural factors have still not been incorporated into existing biological and psychological perspectives on mental disorder and therapy. Psychiatry, the Western medical specialty concerned with mental disorders, has for the most part continued to ignore socio-cultural factors in its theoretical and applied approaches to the problem. The major reason for this is psychiatry's continued commitment to a disease conception of mental disorder which assumes that mental disorders are largely biologically-caused illnesses which are universally represented in etiology and manifestation. Within this perspective, mental disorders are regarded as caused by universal processes which lead to discrete and recognizable symptoms regardless of the culture in which they occur. However, this perspective is now the subject of growing criticism and debate. Front Matter....Pages i-xii Front Matter....Pages 1-1 Introduction: Cultural Conceptions in Mental Health Research and Practice....Pages 3-38 Culture and Psychiatric Illness: Biomedical and Ethnomedical Aspects....Pages 39-68 The Ethnographic Study of Cultural Knowledge of “Mental Disorder”....Pages 69-95 Does the Concept of the Person Vary Cross-Culturally?....Pages 97-137 Front Matter....Pages 139-139 Toward a Meaning-Centered Analysis of Popular Illness Categories: “Fright Illness” and “Heart Distress” in Iran....Pages 141-166 Cultural Definitions, Behavior and the Person in American Psychiatry....Pages 167-192 Samoan Folk Knowledge of Mental Disorders....Pages 193-213 Popular Conceptions of Mental Health in Japan....Pages 215-233 Science and Psychological Medicine in the Ayurvedic Tradition....Pages 235-248 Front Matter....Pages 249-249 The Unbounded Self: Balinese Therapy in Theory and Practice....Pages 251-267 Self-Reconstruction in Japanese Religious Psychotherapy....Pages 269-283 Psychotherapy and Emotion in Traditional Chinese Medicine....Pages 285-301 Shaman-Client Interchange in Okinawa: Performative Stages in Shamanic Therapy....Pages 303-315 Sunao : A Central Value in Japanese Psychotherapy....Pages 317-329 Front Matter....Pages 331-331 The Intercultural Context of Counseling and Therapy....Pages 333-358 Culture and Mental Health: An Overview....Pages 359-388 Back Matter....Pages 389-414