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Cited by 139Psychosomatic Disorders and Their TreatmentsMental Health and PsychiatryCultural Differences and Values

Depression in cultural context: “Chinese somatization”, revisited

Ryder, Andrew G., Chentsova-Dutton, Yulia E.·2012·Psychiatric Clinics of North America
DOI 10.1016/j.psc.2011.11.006
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Abstract

We have presented a view of culture and mental health that builds on work in cultural psychiatry, anthropology, and cultural psychology, and applied it to research on culture and depression. In particular, we have returned to the well-known topic of Chinese somatization. A culture–mind–brain approach to these questions helps us think about them in a way that points toward new research. We have applied this approach to thinking about a single set of questions, relevant to a single (DSM-based) diagnosis, in a single cultural group. The potential, however, is to rethink how we conceptualize mental health in ways consistent with cultural psychiatry’s general perspective over the past several decades, while incorporating rather than rejecting the many recent advances in brain and behavior sciences. In so doing, we gain a more expanded and nuanced view of the global landscape of mental health, accompanied by a more expanded and nuanced view of individual patients.

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  • There are cultural factors influencing the expression of feelings of distress, where they are experienced more in the body than in psychological terms, such as the somatization of depression in China or among immigrants with low social resources.

    “There are also cultural factors influencing the expression of feelings of distress, where they are experienced more in the body than in psychological terms, such as the somatization of depression in China (Ryder and Chentsova-Dutton, 2012) or among immigrants with low social resources (Lin et al., 1985).”

    From More than a feeling: A unified view of stress measurement for population science (2018) · cites this paper as Ryder and Chentsova-Dutton, 2012

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Authors
Ryder, A. G., & Chentsova-Dutton, Y. E.
Affiliations
  • Jewish General Hospital (CA)
  • Georgetown University (US)
Corresponding author
  • Ryder, Andrew G.
  • Chentsova-Dutton, Yulia E.
ORCID
Venue
Psychiatric Clinics of North America
Publisher
Elsevier BV
Published
2012-03
Volume
35
Issue
1
Pages
15-36
ISSN
0193-953X (ISSN-L)
DOI
10.1016/j.psc.2011.11.006
OpenAlex
W2070324923
Cited by
139
References
14
Citations by year
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FWCI
3.93
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
closed
Licence
www.elsevier.com/tdm/userlicense/1.0/ (tdm)
Locations
  • Psychiatric Clinics of North America (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • Spectrum Research Repository (Concordia University) (acceptedVersion)
Funders
Canadian Institutes of Health Research
Topics
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Psychiatry and Mental health › Psychosomatic Disorders and Their Treatments
  • Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Philosophy › Mental Health and Psychiatry
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Cultural Differences and Values
Keywords
depression, cultural factors in mental health, cross-cultural psychiatry, somatization
MeSH terms
Adult, Anthropology, Cultural, Attitude to Health, China, Cross-Cultural Comparison, Depressive Disorder, Emigration and Immigration, Emotions, Ethnopsychology, Female, Humans, Language, Somatoform Disorders, Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Asian People, Cultural Competency

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