Transcultural Psychiatry

This article reviews traditional non-Western approaches to the treatment and prevention of substance abuse and dependence. Therapeutic practices reported here are based on Buddhist, Taoist, Hindu, Islamic and shaman ic traditions as well as on syncretistic Christianized folk beliefs. Traditional practitioners operate outside the official health care system but in some areas in collab oration with it. Analysis of these practices reveals general principles of traditional healing and permits hypotheses on the advantages and disadvantages of traditional approaches.

This paper reviews French concepts of fatigue syn dromes, with a special emphasis on a reputedly unique ly French diagnosis: spasmophilia. Neurasthenia has virtually no place in contemporary French nosology of fatigue states, and chronic fatigue syndrome has not been accepted by all French researchers. The contro versies on neurasthenia and spasmophilia illustrate some of the social uses of diagnostic categories (e.g., legitimation of symptoms) and the ambivalence of physicians toward diagnostic labels based on clinical criteria.