23 research outputs found
Apuntes para una etnopsiquiatrĂa mexicana
Los investigadores en nuestro campo de la psiquiatrĂa transcultural o de la etnopsiquiatrĂa consideran a Sergio Javier Villaseñor Bayardo, psiquiatra y antropĂłlogo, como el mejor calificado para escribir sobre la etnopsiquiatrĂa mexicana. Es un mĂ©dico mexicano con entrenamiento en postgrado de psiquiatrĂa y de etnologĂa-antropologĂa en instituciones acadĂ©micas de primer nivel de MĂ©xico y de Francia. Posee la especialidad en psiquiatrĂa por la Universidad Nacional AutĂłnoma de MĂ©xico, un grado de maestrĂa en toxicologĂa por la Universidad de ParĂs V, un doctorado en AntropologĂa Social y EtnologĂa de la famosa Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales de Paris y además, años de estudio y de investigaciĂłn de campo sobre la cultura y los sistemas curativos de los grupos indĂgenas mexicanos. A diferencia de otros intelectuales latinoamericanos, Villaseñor Bayardo elige iniciar su excelente carrera en la citĂ© lumière pero regresa a su paĂs natal para servir a MĂ©xico como un profesor e investigador clĂnico y acadĂ©mico, autor cientĂfico y editor. Ha contribuido a mejorar aĂşn más la reputaciĂłn de su alma mater, la Universidad de Guadalajara y a la de la prestigiada escuela de medicina, de cuyos pioneros de la psiquiatrĂa hace una crĂłnica en su libro: “Voces de la PsiquiatrĂa”
Culture and Psychopathology Revisited
The author presents examples of pathogenic influence
of culture. He identifies specific pathogenic
factors associated with rapid socio-cultural change affecting
North American Indians and African populations
and sketches the resulting typical psychopathological
conditions: anomic depression in Amerindians, transient
psychotic reactions (bouffée délirante) in Africans.
Witchcraft and sorcery beliefs often characterize the
clinical picture of psychotic reactions in “marginal”
Africans and in transplanted South Europeans of tradition-directed background. Examples are provided
which illustrate the emergence, metamorphosis and
epidemic spreading of so-called “culture-bound syndromes”
under changing socio-economic, cultural and
political conditions. Ritualized possession and trance
states, as well as religious rituals in general, are to be
separated from psychopathological phenomena in order
to avoid eurocentric and positivistic fallacies in psychiatric
diagnosis.L’auteur donne ici des exemples d’influences pathogéniques
de la culture et identifie des facteurs pathogéniques
spécifiques qui se trouvent associés à des changements
socio-culturels rapides parmi des populations africaines et
amérindiennes (Amérique du nord). Est présentée une
esquisse d’états psychopathologiques typiques : dépression
anomique chez les Amérindiens, bouffées délirantes chez
les Africains.
Des croyances Ă des pratiques de magie et de sorcellerie
caractérisent souvent les réactions psychotiques
d’Africains marginalisés et d’Européens originaires de
milieux traditionnels du sud de l’Europe transplantés dans
d’autres situations culturelles. Sont ainsi cités des cas
d’émergence, de métamorphose et de diffusion massive de
syndromes induits culturellement dans des contextes de
changement socio-Ă©conomique, politique et culturel. Il est
en effet nécessaire d’établir une différenciation entre des
Ă©tats de possession et de transe rituelles, et tout rituel
religieux en général, et les phénomènes psychopathologiques
afin d’éviter la formulation d’interprétations eurocentriques
et positivistes lors de l’élaboration d’un diagnostic
psychiatrique
Psychohygienic and therapeutic aspects of the Salish guardian spirit ceremonial
This study is based on analysis of ethnographic literature; personal observation of contemporary spirit dance and healing ceremonies in the Fraser Valley of British Columbia; individual interviews with Coast Salish Indian leaders, ritualists, and other spirit ceremonial participants;
and on five years of close contact with the Upper Stalo Indians as physician and regional mental health officer. In the Coast Salish area, the North American Indian guardian spirit complex combined the spirit quest of the Plateau tribes with secret society features of Northwest
Coast culture. The suppression of the traditional ceremonial by church and government authorities in the decades following the White intrusion is briefly illustrated, and the history of the recent revival of spirit dancing in the Fraser Valley is reported. Ethnographic evidence is cited to demonstrate that the achievement of altered states of consciousness was an essential aspect of the traditional ceremonial: the spirit encounter took place in such a psychophysiologic state, and the traditional spirit quest and spirit dance initiation involved conditions and techniques identical
with, or analogous to, those commonly found in the production of altered states of consciousness elsewhere. The seasonal spirit illness of future spirit dancers in traditional Coast Salish culture was a stereotyped
pathomorphic, but not pathologic, prelude to the public exhibition of spirit powers in the dance ceremonial. Today it is often fused with psychic and psychophysiologic symptom formation in the context of cultural and social deprivation, a syndrome which the author describes under the heading of anomic depression. Diagnosis of this condition as spirit illness permits re-identification of an estranged Indian person with the aboriginal culture via initiation into spirit dancing. The author presents contemporary
spirit dance initiation as a healing process based on the therapeutic
myth of death and rebirth of the neophyte who is made to regress to a state of infantile dependency in order to obtain his spirit power and to grow with it into a more rewarding and healthier existence. Personality
depatterning and reorientation towards the ideal norms of Salish culture is achieved through shock treatments and various types of sensory deprivation and stimulation, followed by physical exercise and indoctrination.
In contemporary Salish theory and practice, persons suffering from depression, anxiety, and somatic complaints unresponsive to Western methods of treatment, as well as persons with behaviour problems, are candidates for the initiation procedure which implies considerable expenses and some risks. The revived ceremonial provides the local native population with an annual winter treatment programme integrating several types of therapy which are identified and discussed. Preliminary data suggest that, as far as the Indian clientele is concerned, the therapeutic effectiveness of this indigenous Salish treatment compares favourably with Western medical
approaches, in conditions of ill health in which psychophysiologic mechanisms are prominent, and with Western correctional management of behaviour
disorders associated with alcohol or drug abuse. Analysis of the changes occurring in the traditional ceremonial since the revival of spirit dancing, shows that what in the past was a ritual with psychohygienic aspects is now an organized Indian effort at culture-congenial psychotherapy. In an attempt to define and localize modern Salish spirit dancing as a social phenomenon within proposed classificatory schemata, it is characterized
as a redemptive movement aiming at total personality change, with nativistic tendencies towards a collective Indian renaissance.Arts, Faculty ofAnthropology, Department ofGraduat