Citation

Schiefenhövel W. Nervenheilkd. 2002; 21(3): 119-126.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2002, Georg Thieme Verlag)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Crosscultural psychiatric studies and evolutionary considerations support the conclusion that our species tends to develop psychic diseases. Some psychiatric syndromes can be seen as "mismatch", i.e. a consequence of the gap between present day living conditions and those typical for the palaeolithic environment of evolutionary adaptedness with its very different characteristics, especially in the psychosocial domain - postpartum dysphoria and depression are candidates for this mismatch. Grief as reaction to losing someone who is vitally meaningful for ego exemplifies the adaptive function of this powerful emotion and the behaviour triggered by it. Excerpts of mourning songs from Melanesia demonstrate the universality of psychic pain induced by the experience of loss which exhibits, regarding its efference, parallels to somatic pain. The regression of the ones stricken with grief towards infantile behaviours signals, in a very effective way, their acute need for social support. Relatives and other members of the group induce, on the one hand, crying and other cathartic forms of mourning, on the other, they console, assist, support and thereby facilitate the return to life of those who have been affected most by the loss. The adaptive functionality of reactive depression is thus evident. Severe depression with suicide as one of its consequences, sometimes interpreted as "honest signal" (which is costly and would, thereby, curtail the danger of being manipulated by staged grief) should rather be seen as pathology without primary adaptive function.

Language: de

Keywords

adjustment; Conditio humana; cultural anthropology; depression; EEA; Eipo; evolution; grief; human; mourning; Mourning behaviour; psychosocial environment; puerperal depression; Reactive depression; review; social support; suicide; Trobriand Islanders