Culture-bound syndrome
Culture-bound syndrome
Culture-bound syndrome (pronunciation: kuhl-chur-bound sin-drohm) refers to 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 equivalent symptoms or syndromes in other cultures.
Etymology
The term "culture-bound syndrome" was first coined in the field of anthropology and cross-cultural psychiatry. The term is composed of three words: "culture", from the Latin cultura meaning to cultivate or grow, "bound", from the Old English bundan meaning to bind or fasten together, and "syndrome", from the Greek syndromē meaning a running together.
Related Terms
- Psychiatry: The branch of medicine focused on the diagnosis, treatment and prevention of mental, emotional and behavioral disorders.
- Anthropology: The study of humans, human behavior and societies in the past and present.
- Cross-cultural psychiatry: Also known as transcultural psychiatry, it is a branch of psychiatry concerned with the cultural and ethnic context of mental illness.
- Somatization: The production of recurrent and multiple medical symptoms with no discernible organic cause.
- Disease: A particular abnormal condition that negatively affects the structure or function of all or part of an organism, and that is not due to any immediate external injury.
Examples
Some examples of culture-bound syndromes include Koro, Dhat syndrome, Hikikomori, and Amok. These syndromes are largely confined to specific societies or culture areas.
See Also
External links
- Medical encyclopedia article on Culture-bound syndrome
- Wikipedia's article - Culture-bound syndrome
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