Recent Work on Culture and Schizophrenia: Epidemiological and Anthropological Approaches - Juniper Publishers

Recent Work on Culture and Schizophrenia: Epidemiological and Anthropological Approaches| Juniper Publishers

Authored by Simon Dein

Schizophrenia is observed worldwide in diverse cultures. However as Abed & Abbas [1] note, the supposed universality of the incidence and prevalence of schizophrenia has been seriously challenged. It is now widely accepted that the life-time prevalence and incidence of this disorder vary considerably in time and place. A lower, 50% concordance between identical twins suggests that environmental or stochastic influences play a significant role in its causation [2]. Here I discuss the role of culture on presentation, attributions and outcomes citing studies by both psychiatric epidemiologists and anthropologists. Transcultural psychiatrists have often argued that schizophrenia is universal: it has similar manifestations in all cultures. This view is consistent with the patho plastic model which is dominant in Western psychiatry and which asserts that schizophrenia is fundamentally similar across cultural groups, with differences expressed only in the content (e.g. demons, government conspiracy) of symptoms, not in terms of the underlying cause and structure [3,4]. As I shall discuss below schizophrenia may take different forms in different. The question rises as to whether cross cultural findings suggest that schizophrenia is a discreet diagnostic entity? This is not a systematic review; rather I have deliberately chosen studies that clearly indicate cultural influences on schizophrenia and contribute to the debate on its diagnostic status.

To view more.. Fulltext


To know more about our website click on Open Access Publishers

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Art and Science: Combustion via Art- Juniper Publishers

Image
Archaeology & Anthropology -  Juniper Publishers Introduction Combustion, burning or fire is the sequence of exothermic chemical reactions between fuel and an oxidant accompanied by the production of heat and conversion of the chemical species to new ones. Combustion supplies most of the energy required by human civilisation where the visible result is fire and flames usually consisting of hot gases and light. The phenomenon of fire is mentioned already in the Bible in Genesis 15:17 as follows:”When the sun had set and darkness had fallen, a smoking firepot with a blazing torch appeared and passes between the pieces.” Probably the earliest reasonably scientific attempt to explain combustion was that of Johannes Baptista van Helmont [1], a Flemish physician and alchemist. He observed the relationship among a burning material, smoke and flame and said that combustion involved the escape of a “wild spirit” from the burning material. In 1667 Johann Joachim Becher
Read more

Discovery of an Escape Tunnel in Sobibor-Juniper Publishers

Image
Archaeology & Anthropology -  Juniper Publishers Introduction The archaeological excavations in the former Nazi-extermination camp of Sobibor in eastern Poland are made possible by a collaboration of four countries: Israel, Netherlands, Poland and Slovakia. Main goal of this joint project is the realization of a visitor centre and monument on the site. The still ongoing excavations, upscaled since 2011, are carried out in order to make construction works possible, and to reveal sensible traces, gain knowledge about the inner structure of the camp and to secure personal items. The excavations were carried out under supervision of Wojciech Mazurek MA (Sub Terra Archaeological Research, Chełm, Poland), Yoram Haimi (representative of Yad Vashem, Israel) and Ivar Schute (representative of the Dutch Ministry of Welfare, since 2013). Inner Structure of the Camp The former Nazi-extermination camp of Sobibor, in which ar
Read more

Metal Weapons of “Warrior’ Burials” Found in the Middle Bronze Age II Southern Levant – Economical and Social Aspects-Juniper Publishers

Image
Archaeology & Anthropology- Juniper Publishers Case Report and Results More than 1000 copper-based weapons associated with the Middle Bronze Age II (MB II; ca. 1950–1550 BCE) culture have been recovered, primarily in burials, throughout the Levant (Figure 1); [1-7]. These, funerary contexts have generally been referred to as “warrior burials”, and contained individuals buried with a presumed “kit”, comprising weapons, such as daggers, axes and spearheads found on the deceased’s waist and/or next to their head (Figure 2). The “warrior burials” are dated mainly to the first half of the MBII period (MB IIA; 1950–1750 BCE) and decline in occurrence in the Middle Bronze IIB (MB IIB; 1750–1550 BCE) [6-8]. Recently, it has been shown [6,7] that less than 25% of all the MB IIA burials can be defined as “warrior burials”, and they should rather be considered to reflect high-ranking members of the contemporary society, i.e., an elite social class . The weapons in the MB IIA “warrior’ burials
Read more