"Folk" criteria for the diagnosis of mental illness in rural Laos: on being insane in sane places

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Abstract
Folk criteria for identifying the mentally ill, as distinguished from folk theoreis about the causes of mental illness, are comparatively neglected in cultural psychiatry. The criteria by which villagers in Laos labeled 35 subjects as baa (insane) were described. Unprovoked assaultive or destructive behavior, social isolation, self-endangerment due to neglect of personal needs, nonviolent but socially disruptive or inappropriate behavior and inability to do productive work were important folk criteria. Folk criteria for mental illness are determined primarily by the persistence of socially dysfunctional behavior rather than by disturbances in thought and affect.

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