Culture Specific Illnesses Flashcards
Confined to males who, after a real or imagined insult, brood for several days and then return in a blind fury during which they attempt to kill everyone encountered. The frenzy is halted only when the person himself is killed or is caught and bound. There is amnesia for the behaviour. The essence of amok is blind, murderous violence arising out of extremely heightened emotions but without other features of psychiatric illness
Amok
Intense emotional upset, shouting uncontrollably, aggression, dissociation, seizure-like episodes and in some suicidal gestures
A sense of being out of control
Attacks often occur from stressful events
Related to panic disorder but some ‘ataques’ are normative expressions of distress (e.g. at funerals)
Ataque de nervios
A form of psychological distress first identified in Nigerian students in the 1960s but reported more generally in the African diaspora. It consists of a variety of cognitive disturbances, such as concentration difficulties and poor retention of study material, as well as sensory disturbances, such as heat sensations or dimming of vision), all of which occur during periods of intense intellectual activity
Brain fag
Applies to young males (although occurs in middle age) who attribute various symptoms (anxiety, somatic complaints, weakness, impotence etc) to semen loss
Dhat
Symptoms of panic attacks in addition to those of autonomic arousal (e.g. tinnitus and neck soreness)
These attacks include catastrophic cognitions centered on the concern that khyâl (a windlike substance) may rise in the body—along with blood—and cause a range of serious effects (e.g., compressing the lungs to cause shortness of breath and asphyxia; entering the cranium to cause tinnitus, dizziness, blurry vision, and a fatal syncope.
Attacks often triggered by worrisome thoughts
Khyâl cap (‘wind attacks)
Patients are usually males, who believe that the penis is withdrawing inside the abdomen. This results in a panic as the person also believes that once the penis has completely retracted he will die. Remedial action is taken by tying the penis with strings and getting help from relatives and friends
Koro
This is a cultural explanation that thinking too much causes anxiety, depression, or somatic problems
Kufungisisa (‘thinking too much’)
Predominantly affects women. Characterised by hypersensitivity to sudden fright or startle, echopraxia, echolalia / coprolalia, automatic responses to commands and dissociative behaviour. Similar to dissociative phenomena
Latah
A cultural explanation for diverse medical and psychiatric disorders. Illnesses are believed to have been sent from others who are envious or seek to cause malice
Maladi moun (‘humanly caused illness’, aka ‘sent sickness’)
Refers to a general state of vulnerability to stressful life experiences. Includes a wide range of symptoms of emotional distress, somatic disturbance, and inability to function
Nervios
Mainly affects women and is characterized by abrupt episodes of extreme excitement, often followed by apparent seizures and transient coma
Piblokto
Integrates conceptual categories of traditional Chinese medicine with the Western diagnosis of neurasthenia.
Symptoms include weakness (e.g. mental fatigue), being overly emotional (e.g. feeling vexed or excited), nervous pain (e.g. headache), and insomnia.
Triggered by work or interpersonal stressors, loss of face, and an acute sense of failure
Shenjing shuairuo (‘weakness of the nervous system’)
An illness attributed to a frightening event that causes the soul to leave the body and results in unhappiness and sickness.
Symptoms may appear any time from days to years after the fright is experienced. In extreme cases, susto may result in death.
Symptoms often reported by people with susto include; appetite disturbances, inadequate or excessive sleep, troubled sleep or dreams, feelings of sadness, low self-worth or dirtiness, interpersonal sensitivity, and lack of motivation to do anything
Susto
characterized by anxiety about and avoidance of interpersonal situations due to the thought, feeling, or conviction that one’s appearance and actions in social interactions are inadequate or offensive to others
Taijin kyofusho (‘interpersonal fear disorder’)
Occurs in those who experience very severe winters and scarcity of food. Initially, sufferers experience a distaste for food, and if this fails to subside, anxiety develops, which rapidly reaches a climax. The sufferer then construes the repugnance for food as evidence that he or she is turning into a wendigo, which is a cannibalistic ice spirit of giant size
Wendigo
