Transcultural Psychiatry

NAROLL points out fallacies in cultural and transcultural psychological and psychiatric research and suggests a number of tests to obviate them. CARSTAIRS describes differences in the amount of permissiveness with which sexual behavior is regarded in different societies. The only form of sexual deviation about which there is a substantial body of crosscultural evidence is homo sexuality. COLLARD reports on differences in responses to psychotropic drugs on comparison of different races and cultural groups. A physiological explana tion of unusual behavior in ceremonies involving drums is given by NEHER.

Differences in schizophrenic symptomatology between Japanese and American hospitalized patients are demonstrated by SCHOOLER and CAUDILL. YONEBAYASHI reports on possession by foxes in rural areas of Japan. Differences between attitudes of the public towards the mentally ill in Japan and the United States have been noted by MIURA, TERASHIMA and NARETA. MURAMATSU'S monu mental work concerning the Japanese—a study in culture and personality—is reviewed.

CHAKRABORTY explores the nature of paranoid symptoms in Indian schizo phrenics and relates variations to the background of the patients studied. Salient features of spirit possession in a village near Delhi are described by STANLEY A. FREED and RUTH S. FREED; according to their findings spirit possession may be thought of as a means of controlling relatives. Based on his data HARPER attributes spirit possession in women of the South Indian caste of Havik Brahmins to their need for attention, prestige and preferential treat ment which they could not attain otherwise. A case-history presented by E. HOCH demonstrates that the Hindu tradition of the four "āśramas" (stages of life) offers the old person a better guide to the acceptance of his age limita tions than do most Western teachings. A hypnotherapeutic technique of a mystical group in Afghanistan is described by JA'FAR HALLAJI.

Statistical differences in first admissions to mental hospitals in Israel regarding sex distribution, country of origin, and type of community are reported by HALEVI. HES examines the role and function of the traditional native practi tioner (Mori) as a healer and counsellor in Yemenite immigrants to Israel. The treatment of the mentally ill (including epileptics) by religious teachers (mullah) and by native practitioners (muttawe) in Kuwait is dealt with by KLINE. TRAMER and BENTOVIM report an investigation regarding the relation ship between psychological functioning and the social personality of Middle Eastern drug addicts. ABDEL-MONEIM EL-MELIGI examines the diagnostic value of a word association technique in an Arabic speaking community in Egypt and assesses its applicability in cross-cultural research.

"Wild man" behavior in New Guinea, described by NEWMAN, is regarded as an institutionalized means for reduction of emotional tension.

COLLOMB, one of the leading psychiatrists on the African continent, has made many outstanding contributions illuminating African psychiatry. Abstracts of articles by him and by his coworkers based on their observations in Senegal are presented. Subjects reported on include clinical syndromes, suicide, alcohol and cannabis habituation, juvenile delinquency, psychosomatic conditions, methods of resolving the Oedipus complex, and the psychotherapeutic effect of an initiation ceremony on persons possessed by evil spirits. WALTON, on the basis of his experiences in the Republic of South Africa, discusses modifications required in the clinical approach in psychiatric practice in a multiracial society. JILEK AND JILEK demonstrate that clinical impressions obtained in Tanganyika could be blindly validated by Rorschach interpretation carried out by a psycho logist unfamiliar with African culture. In the previous issue Psychiatric Disorder among the Yoruba by ALEXANDER H. LEIGHTON and his coworkers was reviewed by a psychiatrist; a review of this book by a cultural anthropologist with exten sive experience in Africa is included in this issue.

Two Hawaiian Japanese ethnic categories, Japanese "proper" (Naichi) and Okinawans were studied by IKEDA and his coworkers in order to determine whether ethnicity is correlated with greater or lesser risk of schizophrenia. The relationship between socio-cultural and personality factors among Eskimos and psychopathological symptoms are discussed by S. PARKER. L. B. BOYER, a psychoanalyst, and RUTH BOYER, an anthropologist, jointly studied in fluences of acculturation on the personality traits of the old people of the Mescalero and Chiricahua Apaches. B. WAINRIB and her coworkers investigated mental health and intellectual development of children on a Canadian Mohawk Indian reservation. An account is given of a snake-handling cult that has recently spread through certain lower-class Protestant groups in the American South East in WESTON LA BARRE'S book, They Shall Take Up Serpents. The cult leaders, the congregation and the social setting are described.

E. DOUYON describes difficulties which a clinical psychologist in Haiti en counters in dealing with illiterate peasant patients deeply steeped in Vodun tradition.

Responses of African negroes and of Caribbean and Brazilian negroes to the difference of their skin color on coming to France are contrasted by BASTIDE AND RAVEAU. Special consideration must be given to unhealthy attitudes towards their skin color in psychotherapy with African negroes. The relative value of projective tests in psychological evaluation of Africans is also discussed in this article. Beliefs and delusions of West Indian immigrants to Great Britain have been studied by KIEV who, in a second article, reports a high frequency of minor psychological disorders in these immigrants.