Juris G. Draguns

Assessment of psychopathology across and within cultures: issues and findings.

Research based information on the impact of culture on psychopathology is reviewed, with particular reference to depression, somatization, schizophrenia, anxiety, and dissociation. A number of worldwide constants in the incidence and mode of expression of psychological disorders are identified, especially in relation to schizophrenia and depression. The scope of variation of psychopathological manifestations across cultures is impressive. Two tasks for future investigations involve the determination of the generic relationship between psychological disturbance and culture and the specification of links between cultural characteristics and psychopathology. To this end, hypotheses are advanced pertaining to the cultural dimensions investigated by Hofstede and their possible reflection in psychiatric symptomatology. It is concluded that the interrelationship of culture and psychopathology should be studied in context and that observer, institution, and community variables should be investigated together with the persons experience of distress and disability.

Comparisons of Psychopathology Across Cultures Issues, Findings, Directions

Comparative cross-cultural studies of psychopathology were reviewed in relation to the parameters of incidence, mode of manifestation, patterning, response to treatment, and outcome. A general model was proposed of regarding such differences as the joint function of subject, observer, setting, community, and instrument factors. The findings surveyed, even in their present nondefinitive state, favor the notion of cultural plasticity of psychopathology and, moreover, converge in suggesting that psychopathology represents a caricature and an exaggeration of culturally shared adaptive patterns of behavior. For a more conclusive examination of this possibility, concurrent research on normal and abnormal subjects drawn from several cultures was proposed and a number of specific modes of implementing this objective were presented.

The Concept of Defense Mechanisms in Contemporary Psychology

The editors have brought together theoretical and empirical contributions on the topic of defence together with studies on the applications of these constructs to clinical and personality assessment, especially with regard to psychopathology, psychosomatics, and psychotherapeutic intervention. This systematic and up-to-date overview highlights the advantages and potentials of currently available approaches to empirical research on defence mechanisms. The text is divided into five practical sections: general issues; methodological considerations; personality and applied psychology; clinical assessment and psychotherapeutic interventions; and psychosomatics.

Abnormal behavior patterns across cultures: Implications for counseling and psychotherapy.

Abstract The results of epidemiological, clinical, and cross-cultural studies of psychopathology are reviewed. They point to a moderate, but not unlimited impact of cultural factors upon psychiatric symptoms and other related manifestations. These differences are principally quantitative and not qualitative. No support is provided for the extreme cultural relativist position in abnormal psychology. The gap remains to be bridged between the recognition of the importance of cultural factors in shaping psychopathology and the practical application of these insights in the practice of counseling. Preliminary ideas to this end are formulated and advanced.

Cultural influences upon psychopathology: Clinical and practical implications

Information on the role of cultural factors in abnormal behavior and experience is selectively reviewed, and several conclusions are drawn about the nature, extent, and impact of such influence. Although a number of demonstrated universals exist in the manifestations of schizophrenia and depression, the scope of cultural variation in all aspects of psychopathology is vast. Both universalist and relativist positions in their pure or exclusive form are rejected and the view is espoused that psychological manifestations are the joint result of panhuman and culture-specific factors. Several conclusions concerning the operation and the results of such influences are presented and the issues that are as yet unresolved are identified. The self is introduced as the key concept in explaining both the constancy and the variation of experience across cultures and four dimensions derived from Hofstedes worldwide multicultural research are described. Their potential relevance is spelled out for systematically investigating the culturally preferred and/or characteristic modalities of psychotherapy.

Mental Health Concepts of Evangelical Protestants

There has been an upsurge of interest in the problems encountered when attempting counseling and psychotherapy across cultural and ethnic barriers. Differences between therapist and client in nationality, race, and socioeconomic background have been widely discussed. Protestant evangelicals have not received much attention in this literature, yet this group has a world view not likely to be shared by the majority of mental health professionals. To fill this gap, 152 members of liberal and traditional (evangelical, fundamentalist) Protestant churches were investigated. Measures of religious orthodoxy and of modernity served as independent variables. Dependent variables were attitudes toward seeking mental health services, opinions about mental illness, and tendencies to view mental health problems as spiritual. The results indicate that evangelicals are prepared to use professional help, although they are concerned about the beliefs and values of the mental health practitioner and express fears that secular therapists might try to alter their beliefs and values: They prefer to go to religious advisers. They also appear to have certain characteristic ideas about mental illness that need to be addressed in any attempt to counsel such clients.

Culture and psychopathology: What is known about their relationship?

Abstract The paper attempts to assess the present state of knowledge about the relationship of culture and abnormal behaviour. It is concluded that solid data now exist pointing to the presence of the two major varieties of psychopathology—schizophrenia and affective disorder—in very different cultural areas of the world. Moreover, a limited number of manifestations of these disorders appear to be invariant regardless of culture and site. At the same time, a host of cultural variations in the incidence rates, symptoms, course, and outcome of psychological disorders have been reported. The amount of such information is sufficient to enable us to identify the characteristic modes of psychopathology of a number of cultures of the world. The major unfinished task, however, remains to trace these culturally variable features to their antecedents in the socially shaped experiences at sites in which they occur. So far, this effort has yielded leads, but no definitive findings which, if obtained, would permit inf...

Symptomatology of hospitalized psychiatric patients in Japan and in the United States: a study of cultural differences.

Groups of hospitalized psychiatric patients in Japan and in the United States were compared in their discrete symptom manifestations as well as in their dominant roles (turning against self, turning against others, avoidance of others) and spheres (thought, affect, somatization, action). With differences in social competence, age and diagnosis reduced to a minimum by application of individual matching across cultures, male Japanese patients were found to exceed their American counterparts in thought dominance; among women, the role of avoidance of others was disproportionately encountered in the United States. In both sex groups, Japanese patients tended toward general and diffuse symptoms; among Americans, the trend was toward elaboration and specificity. Parallels were sought for these findings in the accumulated store of information concerning Japanese cultural patterns, socialization practices and personality characteristics. It was concluded that a degree of continuity obtains between the adaptive and pathological features prevalent within a cultural milieu. Likewise, it appears to be more than a fortuitous convergence that modes of therapeutic intervention favored in Japan stress relationship, intuition and somatic treatment and underemphasize self-understanding and insight.

Toward a truly international psychology: beyond English only.

It is contended that the development of a truly international psychology is obstructed at this point by the massive disregard of contributions that are published in languages other than English. The role of English as a mutually agreed-on principal medium of international communication in psychology is endorsed. At the same time, 11 suggestions are presented to overcome the linguistic isolation from the communities of psychologists in which languages other than English are used to disseminate findings and conceptions.

Effects of sex-linked situations and sex composition on cooperation and style of interaction

One hundred and sixteen undergraduates were randomly assigned to same-sex and mixed-sex dyads. They interacted face-to-face in four different role-playing situations, half of which were female linked and half male linked. These situations were structured to give the participants mixed motives toward each other. Results indicate that sex composition and sex appropriateness of the situations affected the style of interaction more than cooperation. In both the same- and mixed-sex dyads, division of task and maintenance between group members occurred. In mixed-sex dyads, males were task oriented, and females maintenance oriented; presumably, sexual identity was used to make this division. In the same-sex dyads, the distribution of task and maintenance behaviors was worked out in the interaction. Participants rated themselves more knowledgable and were more competitive in female-linked situations than in male-linked ones. Under the conditions of the experiment, sex of the participant and sex composition of the dyad were not found to affect cooperation.