Culture and psychopathology: What is known about their relationship?

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Abstract
The paper attempts to assess the present state of knowledge about the relationship of culture and abnormal behaviour. It is concluded that solid data now exist pointing to the presence of the two major varieties of psychopathology—schizophrenia and affective disorder—in very different cultural areas of the world. Moreover, a limited number of manifestations of these disorders appear to be invariant regardless of culture and site. At the same time, a host of cultural variations in the incidence rates, symptoms, course, and outcome of psychological disorders have been reported. The amount of such information is sufficient to enable us to identify the characteristic modes of psychopathology of a number of cultures of the world. The major unfinished task, however, remains to trace these culturally variable features to their antecedents in the socially shaped experiences at sites in which they occur. So far, this effort has yielded leads, but no definitive findings which, if obtained, would permit inferring psychopathological characteristics from culture.

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