Found this pretty interesting, from Slate. Full Article Here.
Later on they talk about one called Stendhal Syndrome, a condition most common in Italy, in which someone experiences rapid heartbeat, fainting, and confusion after viewing works of art. I've actually experienced this, in Italy, oddly enough...while in Rome and Florence I kept getting lightheaded in the big cathedrals. These were things I'd been reading about ever since I was a small child, to see them in person was overwhelming for a 16 year old. At one point I had a little old Italian lady smile at me and motion for me to go ahead and sit against one of the pillars. Then she took a deep breath, and motioned for me to do the same, patted my shoulder, and went on her way. I always wondered how she knew...
In 1951, Hong Kong psychiatrist Pow-Meng Yap authored an influential paper in the Journal of Mental Sciences on the subject of "peculiar psychiatric disorders"—those that did not fit neatly into the dominant disease-model classification scheme of the time and yet appeared to be prominent, even commonplace, in certain parts of the world. Curiously these same conditions—which include "amok" in Southeast Asia and bouffée délirante in French-speaking countries—were almost unheard of outside particular cultural contexts. The American Psychiatric Association has conceded that certain mysterious mental afflictions are so common, in some places, that they do in fact warrant inclusion as "culture-bound syndromes" in the official Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. The working version of this manual, the DSM-IV, specifies 25 such syndromes. Take "Old Hag Syndrome," a type of sleep paralysis in Newfoundland in which one is visited by what appears to be a rather unpleasant old hag sitting on one's chest at night. (If I were a bitter, divorced straight man, I'd probably say something diabolical about my ex-wife here.) Then there's gururumba, or "Wild Man Syndrome," in which New Guinean males become hyperactive, clumsy, kleptomaniacal, and conveniently amnesic, "Brain Fag Syndrome" (more on that in a moment), and "Stendhal Syndrome," a delusional disorder experienced mostly by Italians after gazing upon artistic masterpieces. The DSM-IV defines culture-bound syndromes as "recurrent, locality-specific patterns of aberrant behavior and troubling experience that may or may not be linked to a particular diagnostic category."
And therein lies the nosological pickle: The symptoms of culture-bound syndromes often overlap with more general, known psychiatric conditions that are universal in nature, such as schizophrenia, body dysmorphia, and social anxiety. What varies across cultures, and is presumably moulded by them, is the unique constellation of symptoms, or "idioms of distress."
And therein lies the nosological pickle: The symptoms of culture-bound syndromes often overlap with more general, known psychiatric conditions that are universal in nature, such as schizophrenia, body dysmorphia, and social anxiety. What varies across cultures, and is presumably moulded by them, is the unique constellation of symptoms, or "idioms of distress."
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