Britain’s Guardian discovers, in light of the DSM controversy, that a “growing number of psychiatrists suspect mental conditions are ‘culture-bound syndromes’ rather than exclusively biological” illnesses.
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This currently links to the wrong article.
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A culture-specific syndrome is characterized by:
1. categorization as a disease in the culture (i.e., not a voluntary behaviour or false claim)
2. widespread familiarity in the culture
3. complete lack of familiarity of the condition to people in other cultures
4. no objectively demonstrable biochemical or tissue abnormalities (symptoms)
5. the condition is usually recognized and treated by the folk medicine of the culture.
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“He points out that there is no discrete genetic variation known to cause depression. Rather, there is genetic overlap across a range of mental illness, including depressive disorder, autism and schizophrenia.”
and every other condition that exists or doesn’t.
