Abstract presented at The 14th Pacific Rim College of Psychiatrists Scientific Meeting, 28-30 October 2010, Brisbane, Australi

Beckett, Humphrey

Carter, Sally

Claudio, Fernanda

Pai, Nagesh

English

Research Online

University of Wollongong Research Online Graduate School of Medicine - Papers (Archive) Faculty of Science, Medicine and Health 2010 DSM and cultural diversity Humphrey Beckett University of Queensland Fernanda Claudio University of Queensland Nagesh Pai University of Wollongong, nagesh@uow.edu.au Sally Carter Northern Sydney Central Coast Area Health Service Follow this and additional works at: https://ro.uow.edu.au/medpapers  Part of the Medicine and Health Sciences Commons Citation Beckett, Humphrey; Claudio, Fernanda; Pai, Nagesh; and Carter, Sally, 2010, DSM and cultural diversity. https://ro.uow.edu.au/medpapers/277 Research Online is the open access institutional repository for the University of Wollongong. For further information contact the UOW Library: research-pubs@uow.edu.au DSM and cultural diversity Abstract Abstract presented at The 14th Pacific Rim College of Psychiatrists Scientific Meeting, 28-30 October 2010, Brisbane, Australia Keywords diversity, cultural, dsm Disciplines Medicine and Health Sciences Publication Details Beckett, H., Claudio, F., Pai, N. Brahmavar. & Carter, S. (2010). DSM and cultural diversity. In 14th Pacific Rim College of Psychiatrists Scientific Meeting, 28-30 Oct 2010, Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre. Asia Pacific Journal of Psychiatry, 2 (3), A13-A13. This conference paper is available at Research Online: https://ro.uow.edu.au/medpapers/277  DSM and Cultural Diversity Dr Humphrey Beckett Retired Psychiatrist Dr Fernanda Claudio Social Anthropologist, School of Social Science, The University of Queensland Prof Nagesh Pai Chair of Psychiatry, Graduate School of Medicine, University of Wollongong Ms Sally Carter Northern Sydney Central Coast Area Health Service   This paper revisits work undertaken with Papua New Guinean Highlanders in the 1970s to address issues still relevant today for psychiatrists working (DSM in hand) with ethnic minorities and unfamiliar cultures. DSM claims universal status while excluding much cultural diversity. Its nosology draws on a narrow range of social contexts. It makes no distinction between symptoms and signs of sociocultural origin and those attributable to disorders of universal prevalence, assuming the two correlate predictably, occur in the same combinations, and mean the same thing universally. Looking to confirm these assumptions from my records, I find a very different picture. Highlands’ ‘madness’ presented at onset with behaviours of clearly local origin, much of it symbolic enactment. In 42% of episodes, that was all there was to it: behaviour on the part of distressed individuals that remitted once notice had been taken and remedies put in place. In the other 58%, however, mental illnesses - robust entities, that is, rather than something similar to purely descriptive categories devised for  inter-professional consistency - emerged from underneath. In the Highlands there was no predictable correlation between social phenomena and psychiatric diagnosis: they could not have been integrated within a single nosology. The psychiatrist needed to work with two mutually independent constructs of incompatible status. Behaviours did not form age and gender-specific, or mutually exclusive, clusters. No possible combination of behaviours could not be found in my case-sample. What individuals did when mad was the product of many variables, all in play at the same time. Social sequel and stability did not consistently correlate with presenting behaviours, underlying mental illnesses, age, gender or marital status. Symptomatic remedies were efficacious, but ‘curing’ an identifiable ‘illness’ was only one part of the work of a psychiatrist in the Highlands concerned with the social reintegration and lasting stability of his patients. 

DSM and cultural diversity

https://ro.uow.edu.au/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1281&amp;context=medpapers

DSM and cultural diversity

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