Are Mental Illnesses Universal! --The Issues and Consequences of Ethnopsychiatry: An Anthropological Observation

Abstract

Psychiatric systems, like religious, political, or kinship systems, are culturally constructed. Each mirrors a culturally constructed reality and inseparable entity of being an aspect of human culture. The present study broadly interprets that folk and professional psychiatrists are equally trans-cultural, or ethno-psychiatry, the psychiatric edifices expressive of particular cultures. The term ‘ethno psychiatry’ has been coined in the late 1940s to refer to the local presentation of psychiatric illness, and popularized in the 1950s. Finally, the pertinent area as well as approach to the study of mental illness in the communities through the psychiatric theories and practices at its social and cultural setting is considered as an interdisciplinary concern under the purview of Medical Anthropology. The universal domain of mental illness has also been judged and explored both folk and professional psychiatric practitioners and researchers from numerous cross-cultural studies along with an interface between Medical anthropology Psychology Cognitive anthropology and Psychological Anthropology. The present analyses finally throw light on the mental illness and its own standard of judgments as cultural constracts, ethno-psychology of mental illness, or ethno psychiatrist, featuring local understanding of causes, symptoms, and treatments.