PSYC 3350 Lecture Notes - Lecture 9: Traditional Healers Of South Africa, Normative Social Influence, Somatization

• School: York University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYC 3350
• Professor: Francois Lalonde

Document Summary

Although there are universal biological factors related to psychopathologies, experience and interpretation of symptoms can vary across cultures. Di erences in prevalence of universal disorders are a result of: di erences in diagnosis and di erences of symptomatic experience (psychological and physical presentations) A calling that comes from deceased ancestors, to become a sangoma (an indigenous healer: hikikomori: dropping out of the social world, and becoming increasingly isolated. More prevalent in boys than girls (1/3 children) Pressure or bullying due to not meeting the academic standards: anorexia/bullimia- bullimia is primarily a western culture-bound syndrome. Anorexia: self-starvation in numerous cultural contexts, but reasons were not about bodily preoccupations: koro- severe anxiety that the penis/vulva is shrinking into body. Men fear that they are turning into women. Western culture stresses the importance of the psychological symptoms: westerners are more attentice to their emotional states.