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Citation |
Opler MK. Am. J. Orthopsychiatry 1955; 25(1): 51-59. |
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Copyright |
(Copyright © 1955, American Orthopsychiatric Association, Publisher Wiley Blackwell) |
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DOI |
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PMID |
unavailable |
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Abstract |
This article discusses the cultural perspective in mental health research. Since the days of Adolf Meyer, however, it has been proper in nosological and diagnostic work to think not of rigid illness categories divorced from environmental influences as such, but of generalized illness typologies with more specific subcategories very much influenced by cultural background. While Meyer was interested especially in environmental influences associated with therapy, several more modern followers continue the study of psychopathologies in a statistical sense of prevalence and incidence, as varying with environmental factors which are cultural. Diethelm has recently summarized the changes in frequency of psychopathological symptoms in relation to therapeutic and cultural influences. The totals, variations and changes in rates among our peoples and in other cultures must be studied directly in relation to cultural background. The second part of the article relates to various types of adjustment, as being connected with such cultural background factors. In some anthropological studies of character structure, depending not upon psychiatric distributive analysis, but upon single tools like the Rorschach, etc., the basic character structure and so-called adult personality type is described as a clinical model, whether schizoid, paranoid, or whatever. Consequently, since identification is both a family and a group affair, questions of intergeneration conflict generally appearing in the older culture may be intensified, rather than reduced, by the average pace of acculturation of the group as a whole. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved) |
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Keywords |
Clinical Models; Cross Cultural Differences; Culture (Anthropological); Family Background; Mental Health |