PSY 3126 Lecture Notes - Lecture 13: Hikikomori, Economic Stability, Society 1
28 Apr 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
November 27, 2017
Mental Health
What counts as a disorder?
Psychological disorders: defined as rare behaviours that impair an individual’s functioning
-Problem: what if a behaviour that is rare in one context is common in another
•Similarly, what if a behaviour is considered problematic in one context but not in another?
-Indeed, some psychopathologies are more prevalent, or manifest in highly different forms, across cultures
Culture-Bound Syndromes
Culture-bound syndromes: disorders greatly influenced by cultural factors
-Occur far less frequently in some contexts than others or are manifested in highly divergent ways in other cultures
-Experiencing a culture-bound syndrome generally requires one to have cultural beliefs associated with the
syndrome
-Characteristics:
•Tied to a specific culture’s belief system
•More prevalent in a specific culture
Dhat syndrome: anxiety/perception that one is leaking semen, and that this will lead to serious illness
-Experienced by South Asian men
-This fear about loss of semen requires a belief that links semen, sexual activity, morality, and health
•Semen is thought to be linked to the life-force
Hikikomori: patient drops out from the social world, barricading his- or herself up in a room for years
-Experienced by the Japanese
•Largely not existent in pre-war Japan, and uncommon in other cultures
•Has become more common in recent decades
•Thought to be related to modern societal change and particular aspects of Japanese culture
-Economic stability: families are better able to support Hikikomori sufferers
-Increasingly competitive education system: reaction where people buckle under the pressure, people feel like
rote memorization doesn’t help them and there’s no meaning to what they’re learning
-Amae (sense of dependency between parent and child): marker of a good parent-child relation
-Indicates the cause may be failure to succeed in a social world that has few options for those who don’t fit in
•Due to a fear of failure of not fitting into mainstream society
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-Doesn’t conform to any criteria for any DSM-IV-R diagnoses
Koro: morbid anxiety about one’s penis shrinking into one’s body
-Primarily found in South and East Asia
-Can also be found in women, where they are afraid that their nipples are shrinking into their body - must less
common
-Unclear what aspects of culture have led to the emergence of Koro
•Might be due to a Chinese medicine belief that an imbalance of yin and yang can cause the genitals to retract
-Koro-like symptoms have been found in some individuals in West African cultures, as well as in individuals in
American culture who have had negative marijuana-induced experiences
•Suggests that some components of Koro may be universally accessible
•However, Koro only manifests as a syndrome within certain cultures where people have an awareness of the
existence of the disorder
Amok: acute outburst of unrestrained violent and homicidal attacks, preceded by brooding, followed by exhaustion
and amnesia
-Most common in Southeast Asia
•However, there are similar phenomena elsewhere (ex. Mass killings in Western cultures)
•Difference is that these Western mass killings tend to be more premeditated, and it is unclear whether these
similar behaviours are indicative of a common underlying disorder
-Thought to be brought about by stress, lack of sleep, and alcohol consumption
-May result form having no acceptable means to express frustration
Bulimia nervosa: uncontrollable binge eating followed by the individual taking inappropriate measures to prevent
weight gain
-Must be doing so at least twice a week for three months and must not be concurrently diagnosed with anorexia
nervosa
-Absent in most cultures of the world, making it a culture-bound syndrome (especially in cultures where food is not
abundant)
Anorexia nervosa: an individual’s refusal to maintain normal body weight due to preoccupation with their body
-Evidence of culture-bound status: huge increase in rates of anorexia this century, particularly in Western culture
•Appears to occur mainly in modern cultures with Western influence
•Possible explanations:
-Greater emphasis on being skinny
-Greater exposure in media to unattainable body standards
-Evidence of universality: reports of self-starvation in numerous cultural contexts but not due to body image
(ascetism)
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•Therefore, might be an existential universal, but not a functional universal
-Self-starvation is present, but not always for the same reasons
-Ex. Certain people stop eating for religious beliefs (divine intervention, God’s will, etc.) - culture-specific
-Ex. Western context: media produces the culture-specific pressures that act on the genetic predisposition
•There might be a universal, underlying biological predisposition to maintaining a lower body weight
Hysteria: symptoms include temporary blindness, insomnia, fainting, and loss of appetite for food and sex
-Commonly diagnosed condition in 19th century European women
•Recall: culture can vary across time - disorders can be bound to a specific time period
-Rates of hysteria diagnosis dropped dramatically in the early 20th century
•Response to the overwhelmingly repressive social norms (particularly on women) during Victorian era
-As the norms became more relaxed, the symptoms weren’t perceived as symptoms of a disorder
•Changes in psychiatric classification system - people will now be diagnosed with other disorders instead, no
longer thought of as a disorder
Other culture-bound syndromes:
-Frigophobia (China): extreme fear of being cold and catching a cold
-Susto (Latin America): people feel that a frightening experience has caused their soul to get dislodged from their
bodies
-Voodoo death (Africa): people are convinced that a curse has been put on them or that they have broken a taboo,
which results in a severe fear reaction that sometimes leads to their own deaths
-Latah (SE Asia, Siberia, Ainu of Japan): a person falls into a transient dissociated state after some kind of startling
event (ex. Being tickled, thinking they’ve seen a snake)
•Usually exhibits some kind of unusual behaviour (ex. Acting in culturally inappropriate ways, barking like a dog)
and the person will not remember the outburst
-Malgri (Aboriginal Australians): occurs when afflicted individuals enter the sea or a new territory without engaging in
the appropriate ceremonial procedures, making them believe that they are invaded by a totemic spirit
•They believe that the spirit makes them physically sick, tired, and drowsy
-Agonias (Portugal and the Azores): anxiety disorder where people report a wide array of symptoms, including a
burning sensation, a loss of breath, hysterical blindness, sleeping, and eating disorders
-Kufungisisa (Africa, Caribbean, Native Americans, East Asia): anxiety and somatic problems that are thought to
stem from mental exhaustion
•People believe that their mind has been damaged by excessive thinking and can no longer properly function,
causing them to experience panic attacks and irritability
-Ataques de nervios (Puerto Rico): emotionally charged settings (ex. Family conflict, funerals) lead to symptoms like
palpitations, numbness, and a sense of heat rising to the head
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Document Summary
Psychological disorders: de ned as rare behaviours that impair an individual"s functioning. Indeed, some psychopathologies are more prevalent, or manifest in highly different forms, across cultures. Culture-bound syndromes: disorders greatly in uenced by cultural factors. Occur far less frequently in some contexts than others or are manifested in highly divergent ways in other cultures. Experiencing a culture-bound syndrome generally requires one to have cultural beliefs associated with the syndrome. Characteristics: tied to a speci c culture"s belief system, more prevalent in a speci c culture. Dhat syndrome: anxiety/perception that one is leaking semen, and that this will lead to serious illness. This fear about loss of semen requires a belief that links semen, sexual activity, morality, and health: semen is thought to be linked to the life-force. Hikikomori: patient drops out from the social world, barricading his- or herself up in a room for years.
