Psychiatric Diagnosis in a Transcultural Setting: The Importance of Lexical Categories

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Abstract
In a transcultural setting, psychiatric diagnosis is often impeded by language and cultural barriers. A greater reliance on observed or reported behaviour than on the self-reporting of subjective discomfort may thus be expected, and this could result in the low prevalence of reported anxiety and depression in many transcultural psychiatric surveys. The language of the Pintupi Aborigines of Central Australia, until recently palaeolithic hunter-gatherers, is seen to contain lexical categories for anxiety and depression. This attests not only to their capacity to experience such affects, but also to their ability to express them verbally. The implications of this finding for psychiatric diagnosis are discussed.

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