[iamzack]

I used to think therapy worked like in the movies where the doctor gives two ****s. :< IRL, pills are your doctor.

[Kosh]

Any psychological condition is a product of genetic and environmental factors.

People will still respond to similair types of pressures in a similair manner. We are still hardwired to have the same basic responces, even though they may be expressed in a different channel.

Kosh, I think you're missing the point of the article. It's not saying that existing psychological theories are inapplicable; it's simply that a lot of psychology is based upon western culture and paradigms, which do not necessarily have to be universal, and that because of the education method, there is a massive dearth of data on how psychological issues are caused by other cultures and paradigms.

Why wouldn't they be? Most people have to be concerned with a very similair set of problems (family, society, work, retirement). The social pressures might be different but not enough to invalidate decades of research.

Also, the article brings up a very good point that treating mental disease as a biological disease causes people to shun them, much like how people will avoid plague-bearers. It also brings up how different cultural methods of treating mental disease are often effective; is our current method of therapy always the best way, after all?

In a lot of those cultures people with mental illness are already shunned, and that is their traditional method for dealing with it. It's really a choice between our way or nothing, although some fine tuning of certain therapy methods (for some people sitting alone in a room with a stranger is not desirable) might be a good idea but the underlying research is still valid.

[General Battuta]

The underlying research is not definitely valid, because it was not performed on a representative sample.

We stress out about this a lot in my lab. Unfortunately we don't really have a way to get better samples.

We are still hardwired to have the same basic responces, even though they may be expressed in a different channel.

Maybe, but we don't know what is a product of hardwired responses, to what degree they are modified by the environment, and to what degree they are simply a product of environmental factors.

Don't substitute opinions for scientific fact. (Ironically, that's what this article is largely about - a plea for good research methods.)

Why wouldn't they be? Most people have to be concerned with a very similair set of problems (family, society, work, retirement). The social pressures might be different but not enough to invalidate decades of research.

Ah, but in fact, we find quite different experimental results in collectivist vs. individualist cultures. Some factors are universal, others are not.

[Kosh]

Out of curiousity how much have you been overseas? And I don't mean in a western bubble, I mean having little to no contact with other foreigners and working in a similair environment as "the natives"?

[General Battuta]

Not at all, by those criteria.

Fortunately, the researchers whose papers we read have been, as have our painstakingly collected data sets and experimental results.

This isn't sociology or anthropology here - we don't gather data by talking to people and making field observations.

[Ford Prefect]

Kosh:

Of course, we can become psychologically unhinged for many reasons that are common to all, like personal traumas, social upheavals or biochemical imbalances in our brains. Modern science has begun to reveal these causes. Whatever the trigger, however, the ill individual and those around him invariably rely on cultural beliefs and stories to understand what is happening. Those stories, whether they tell of spirit possession, semen loss or serotonin depletion, predict and shape the course of the illness in dramatic and often counterintuitive ways. In the end, what cross-cultural psychiatrists and anthropologists have to tell us is that all mental illnesses, including depression, P.T.S.D. and even schizophrenia, can be every bit as influenced by cultural beliefs and expectations today as hysterical-leg paralysis or the vapors or zar or any other mental illness ever experienced in the history of human madness. This does not mean that these illnesses and the pain associated with them are not real, or that sufferers deliberately shape their symptoms to fit a certain cultural niche. It means that a mental illness is an illness of the mind and cannot be understood without understanding the ideas, habits and predispositions — the idiosyncratic cultural trappings — of the mind that is its host.

(That's from the article, the entirety of which I assume, of course, you read before raising objections to its premises.)

[Nuke]

freud had to bat**** insane to even get a grasp on the mind. makes me question if the problem of fixing crazy people is even remotely compatible with the scientific method.

[General Battuta]

It is, but Freud isn't.

[Turambar]

makes me question if the problem of fixing crazy people is even remotely compatible with the scientific method.

it requires hugs




and cocaine

[Nuke]

yay! cocaine!

[karajorma]

Out of curiousity how much have you been overseas? And I don't mean in a western bubble, I mean having little to no contact with other foreigners and working in a similair environment as "the natives"?

If you're gonna claim that other cultures are basically the same as the sample used I'm gonna call bull**** on you.

And I'm in a far more culturally alien situation than you are.

[Kosh]

Out of curiousity how much have you been overseas? And I don't mean in a western bubble, I mean having little to no contact with other foreigners and working in a similair environment as "the natives"?

If you're gonna claim that other cultures are basically the same as the sample used I'm gonna call bull**** on you.

And I'm in a far more culturally alien situation than you are.

I'm not, but what I'm claiming is the differences are usually more slanted towards organizational structures and expression of psychological problems, not always the underlying causes (especially with somatic conditions). Intense exam pressure for example leads to higher rates of suicide, this is true anywhere that pressure exists. However, some of the somatic conditions (like the amazing shrinking penis syndrome) seem to be based on local superstitions and bad education but the underlying problem (an irrational belief that something is is real when it isn't) is quite similair.

I am wondering how are you more culturally alien than I am.

We stress out about this a lot in my lab. Unfortunately we don't really have a way to get better samples.

You could go to some of these areas and temporarily set up shop, then pay some of the locals to participate in a study. Either that or hire recently arrived illegal immigrants in the US.

The underlying research is not definitely valid, because it was not performed on a representative sample.

That is a good point.

Maybe, but we don't know what is a product of hardwired responses, to what degree they are modified by the environment, and to what degree they are simply a product of environmental factors.

Don't substitute opinions for scientific fact. (Ironically, that's what this article is largely about - a plea for good research methods.)

So, you are saying that research is lacking. Is my interpretation correct?

Ah, but in fact, we find quite different experimental results in collectivist vs. individualist cultures. Some factors are universal, others are not.

Ok, perhaps you could provide some studies for me to look at. I'm up for it.

Fortunately, the researchers whose papers we read have been, as have our painstakingly collected data sets and experimental results.

Ok, like who?

[Bobboau]

ok, so what I'm getting from this thread is some people are of the opinion that non-westerners have genetic level differences that manifest in differences in how their minds work, I have suggested the possibility (I'm not of the opinion that it's true, only that it might on some small trivial scale be possible) of this on occasion and was called a racist, but now that it is western medicine that is in question well it's obvious that the white man's medicine is inferior.

[General Battuta]

No, that's not what the thread is suggesting. Not once have genetic level differences been suggested.

This is what's being suggested:

Kosh:

Of course, we can become psychologically unhinged for many reasons that are common to all, like personal traumas, social upheavals or biochemical imbalances in our brains. Modern science has begun to reveal these causes. Whatever the trigger, however, the ill individual and those around him invariably rely on cultural beliefs and stories to understand what is happening. Those stories, whether they tell of spirit possession, semen loss or serotonin depletion, predict and shape the course of the illness in dramatic and often counterintuitive ways. In the end, what cross-cultural psychiatrists and anthropologists have to tell us is that all mental illnesses, including depression, P.T.S.D. and even schizophrenia, can be every bit as influenced by cultural beliefs and expectations today as hysterical-leg paralysis or the vapors or zar or any other mental illness ever experienced in the history of human madness. This does not mean that these illnesses and the pain associated with them are not real, or that sufferers deliberately shape their symptoms to fit a certain cultural niche. It means that a mental illness is an illness of the mind and cannot be understood without understanding the ideas, habits and predispositions — the idiosyncratic cultural trappings — of the mind that is its host.

(That's from the article, the entirety of which I assume, of course, you read before raising objections to its premises.)

I assume, of course, that you read the article?

(And for further clarification, no one is suggesting that the 'white man's medicine' is inferior - the article suggests scientific techniques have not been applied as rigorously as they should be.)

[iamzack]

It's about how mental illnesses are less biologically based than we tend to think they are. Not about how other people have different biology.

[Ford Prefect]

Well, this thread has certainly been a cultural case study in attention span, if nothing else.

[General Battuta]

Kosh: sorry I missed your request. Try here or here for a couple randomly selected examples.

These are by no means definitive studies in the field, they're just what I came up with on a quick search. I'll hunt through my texts and my lab's papers to see if I can find any of the big ones.

[karajorma]

I am wondering how are you more culturally alien than I am.

IIRC you're in Nanjing which has quite a few more lao wai than the tiny city I live in.

[Kosh]

Kosh: sorry I missed your request. Try here or here for a couple randomly selected examples.

These are by no means definitive studies in the field, they're just what I came up with on a quick search. I'll hunt through my texts and my lab's papers to see if I can find any of the big ones.

I'll read them and post a reply about it in a few days.

IIRC you're in Nanjing which has quite a few more lao wai than the tiny city I live in.

True, although I don't really have that much to do with the laowai that live here.

[karajorma]

Yeah but you probably don't get people starring at you open mouthed when you walk down the street.