Index of Culture-Bound Syndromes
By Culture
The following is an index of major culture-bound syndromes by culture or geographical area. For a more complete description of each syndrome, please refer to the Glossary of Culture-bound Syndromes.
Cultural and Geographical Areas:
East Asia
South and Southeast Asia
Africa
Mediterranean and Middle East
Latin America and the Caribbean
United States, Canada, and Western Europe
Native Americans, Arctic, and Polynesia
- hsieh-ping: (Taiwan) a brief trance state during which
one is possessed by an ancestral ghost, who often attempts to
communicate to other family members. Symptoms include tremor,
disorientation and delirium, and visual or auditory hallucinations.
Similar to shin-byung (Korea).
- pa-feng and pa-leng: (China) phobic fear of wind
and cold, respectively. Patients fear an excess of yin
(negative/femal energy) from exposure to wind and cold. Afflicted
individuals bundle up in warm clothing, eat symbolically "hot" food,
and avoid wind or drafts. Symptoms of both often co-occur.
- shenkui (China); also shen k'ui (WG): marked
anxiety or panic symptoms with accompanying somatic complaints for
which no physical cause can be demonstrated. Symptoms include
dizziness, backache, fatiguability, general weakness, insomnia,
frequent dreams, and complaints of sexual dysfunction (such as
premature ejaculation and impotence). Symptoms are attributed to
excessive semen loss from frequent intercourse, masturbation,
nocturnal emission, or passing of "white turbid urine" believed to
contain semen. Excessive semen loss is feared because it represents
the loss of one's vital essence and can thereby be life threatening.
- suo yang (China): See koro (Malaysia). Dialectal
variants include: suo1 yang2, (Mandarin), suk7 joeng4
(Cantonese), siok4 iong5 (Hokkien), shuk yang
(Shanghai). Many other dialectal or idiosyncratic spellings are
used in the literature.
- Qi-gong Psychosis: (China) an acute,
time-limited episode characterized by dissociative, paranoid, or
other psychotic or nonpsychotic symptoms that occur after
participating in the Chinese folk health-enhancing practice of
qi-gong.
- shenjian shuairuo (Chinese); shen2jing1 shuai1ruo4 (pinyin with tones) shen-ching shuai-jo (WG): "neurasthenia". Symptoms include physical and mental fatigue, dizziness, headaches and other pains, difficulty concentrating, sleep disturbance, and memory loss.
- imu (Ainu & Sakhalin, Japan): See latah
(Malaysia)
- taijin kyofusho: (Japan) a syndrome of intense fear that one's body, body parts, or bodily functions are displeasing, embarrassing, or offensive to other people in appearance, odor, facial expressions, or movements.
- hwa-byung or wool-hwa-bung: (Korea) "anger
syndrome".
- shin-byung: (Korea) syndrome characterized by anxiety and somatic complaints (general weakness, dizziness, fear, loss of appetite, insomnia, and gastrointestinal problems), followed by dissociation and possession by ancestral spirits.
- amurakh, irkunii, ikota, olan, myriachit, and menkeiti (Siberian groups): See latah (Malaysia).
South and Southeast Asia
India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Assam, Bhutan, Nepal.
- dhat and jiryan: (India) semen-loss syndrome.
- sukra prameha (Sri Lanka): semen-loss syndrome.
- jinjinia bemar (Assam): See koro (Malaysia).
Malaysia and Indonesia
- amok: (Malaysia) a dissociative episode characterized by
a period of brooding followed by an outburst of violent, aggressive,
destructive, or homicidal behavior.
- koro: (Malaysia) an episode of sudden and intense anxiety
that the penis (or in the rare female cases, the vulva and nipples)
will recede into the body and possibly cause death.
- latah: (Malaysia and Indonesia) hypersensitivity to sudden fright, often with echopraxia, echoLalia, command obedience, and dissociative or trancelike behavior. The Malaysian syndrome is more frequent in middle-aged women.
Other Southeast Asia
- rok-joo (Thailand): See koro (Malaysia).
- bah-tschi, bah-tsi, and baah-ji (Thailand):
See latah (Malaysia).
- mali-mali and silok (Philippines): See latah (Malaysia).
Africa
North Africa
- zar: (Ethiopia, Somalia, Egypt, Sudan, Iran, and elsewhere in North Africa and the Middle East) experience of spirit possession. Symptoms may include dissociative episodes with laughing, shouting, hitting the head against a wall, singing, or weeping. Individuals may show apathy and withdrawal, refusing to eat or carry out daily tasks, or may develop a long-term relationship with the possessing spirit.
Subsaharan Africa
- brain fag or brain fog: (West Africa) a condition
experience by high school or university students. Symtoms include
difficulties in concentrating, remembering, and thinking.
Additional symptoms center around the head and neck and include
pain, pressure, tightness, blurring of vision, heat, or burning.
- boufée deliriante: (West Africa and Haiti) sudden outburst of agitated and aggressive behavior, marked confusion, and psychomotor excitement. It may sometimes be accompanied by visual and auditory hallucinations or paranoid ideation.
Mediterranean and Middle East
- nevra (Greece): See nervios (Latin America).
- mal de ojo: (Spain and Latin America) the "evil eye".
- sangue dormido: (Portuguese Cape Verdeans) Literally "sleeping blood". Symptoms include pain, numbness, tremor, paralysis, convulsions, stroke, blindness, heart attack, infection, and miscarriage.
Latin America and the Caribbean
Caribbean
- falling out or blacking out: (Southern U.S. and Caribbean) episodes characterized by sudden collapse and fainting, often with hysterical blindness.
Latin America
- mal de pelea (Puerto Rico): see amok (Malaysia).
- locura: (Latin America) a severe, chronic psychosis.
- ataque de nervios: an idiom of distress principally
reported among Latinos from the Caribbean, but also among many Latin
American and Latin Mediterranean groups. Symptoms include
uncontrULlable shouting, attacks of crying, trembling, heat in the
chest rising to the head, and verbal or physical aggression.
Ataques de nervios frequently occur as a result of a stressful
family event, especially the death of a relative, but also a divorce
or fight with a family member.
- bilis and colera: part of a general Latin American
idiom of distress and explanation of physical or mental illness as a
result of extreme emotion, which upsets the humors (described in
terms of hot and cold.) Bilis and colera specifically implicate
anger in the cause of illness.
- mal de ojo: (Spain and Latin America) the "evil eye".
- nervios: (Latin America) Idiom of distress, refers to a
general state of vulnerability to stressful life experiences and to
a syndrome brought on by such stresses. Symptoms may be very broad,
but commonly include emotional distress, headaches, irritability,
stomach disturbances, sleep disturbances, nervousness, easy
tearfulness, inability to concentrate, tingling sensations, and
dizziness.
- susto: an idiom of distress principally reported among
Latinos in the U.S. and Latin America. Susto is an illness
attributed to a frightening event that causes the soul to leave the
body, leading to symptoms of unhappiness and sickness. Symptoms are
extremely variable and may occur months or years after the
supposedly precipitating event.
Alternate names include espanto, pasmo, tripa
ida, perdida del alma, and chibih.
- mal puesto or brujeria (Latin America): illness caused by witchcraft.
United States, Canada, and Western Europe
Western Europe
- anorexia mirabilis or holy anorexia: (medieval
Europe): severe restriction of food intake, associated with
experience of religious devotion. Often not considered pathological
within the culture. The terms are used by historians, and are not
emic.
- anorexia nervosa (North America, Western Europe): severe
restriction of food intake, associated with morbid fear of obesity.
Other methods may also be used to lose weight, including excessive
exercise. May overlap with symptoms of bulimia nervosa.
- bulimia nervosa (North America, Western Europe): binge eating followed by purging through self-induced vomiting, laxatives, or diuretics; and morbid fear of obesity. May overlap with symptoms of anorexia nervosa.
United States and Canada
- anorexia nervosa (North America, Western Europe): severe
restriction of food intake, associated with morbid fear of obesity.
Other methods may also be used to lose weight, including excessive
exercise. May overlap with symptoms of bulimia nervosa.
- bulimia nervosa (North America, Western Europe): binge eating followed by purging through self-induced vomiting, laxatives, or diuretics; and morbid fear of obesity. May overlap with symptoms of anorexia nervosa.
Southern United States
- falling out or blacking out: (Southern U.S. and
Caribbean) episodes characterized by sudden collapse and fainting,
often with hysterical blindness.
- spell: (southern U.S.) a trance state in which
individuals "communicate" with deceased relatives or with spirits.
- rootwork: (Southern U.S. and Caribbean) illness as the result of hexing, witchcraft, voodoo, or the influence of an evil person.
Native Americans, Arctic, and Polynesia
Native Americans
- ghost sickness: (American Indian groups) preoccupation
with death and the deceased, sometimes associated with witchcraft.
Symptoms may include bad dreams, weakness, feelings of danger, loss
of appetite, fainting, dizziness, fear, anxiety, hallucinations,
loss of consciousness, confusion, feelings of futility, amd a sense
of suffocation.
- iich'aa (Navaho): see amok (Malaysia).
- windigo or witiko: (Algonkian Indians, NE US and Eastern Canada) syndrome of obsessive cannibalism, now somewhat discredited. Windigo was supposedly brought about by consuming human flesh in famine situations. Afterwards, the cannibal was supposed to be haunted by cravings for human flesh and thoughts of killing and eating humans.
Eskimos and Arctic
- pibloktoq: (Greenland Eskimos) an abrupt dissociative episode.
Polynesia
- cafard or cathard: see amok (Malaysia).