Abstract
In recent publications, Marsella outlined an approach to cross-cultural psychiatric epidemiologies. He suggests that such studies begin with an “emic determination of disorder categories”, utilizing ethnoscience techniques “to evolve categories of disorder and their experiential components which are meaningful to the cultures under study” (Marsella 1978:351; cf. Marsella 1979:246; 1980:49). These illness categories should then be submitted to epidemiological research, establishing baseline data and using multivariate analysis to determine objective patterns of disorder for particular societies. Such culture-specific studies should precede cross-cultural comparison. This approach will be welcomed by many anthropologists as having significant advantages over traditional psychiatric epidemiologies, of the sort Kleinman has called “the old transcultural psychiatry” (Kleinman 1977). Anthropologists experienced in studying illness across cultures will recognize also that the most fundamental aspect of such research — the emic determination of categories of disorder — is fraught with important methodological and theoretical difficulties.
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Good, B.J., Good, MJ.D. (1982). Toward a Meaning-Centered Analysis of Popular Illness Categories: “Fright Illness” and “Heart Distress” in Iran. In: Marsella, A.J., White, G.M. (eds) Cultural Conceptions of Mental Health and Therapy. Culture, Illness, and Healing, vol 4. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-010-9220-3_5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-010-9220-3_5
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