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Culture-bound syndromes, idioms of distress, and cultural concepts of distress: New directions for an old concept in psychological anthropology
Open accessAbstract
This issue of Transcultural Psychiatry showcases some recent work on idioms of distress – the latest in a long line of anthropological research concerned with cross-cultural concepts and experiences of distress. Mark Nichter’s (1981) seminal paper introducing idioms of distress has become a cynosure for psychological anthropology and transcultural psychiatry. A growing body of work has since accumulated; however, the last time a collection of such research was brought together was the 2010 publication of a special issue in the journal Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry organized by Devon Hinton and Roberto Lewis-Fernández. In the decade since, new questions have arisen about the boundaries and applications of idioms of distress research. In this introduction, we provide a brief history of work on idioms of distress and related concepts. Then, we introduce several major themes explored by the papers in this special issue.
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“Furthermore, the imposition of Western conceptualizations of mental illness on non-Western cultures has been critiqued for perpetuating paternalistic practices and excluding local cosmologies, highlighting the need for emic research approaches that recognize non-Western idioms of distress (Fabian et al., 2018; Kaiser & Weaver, 2019).”
From Developing and validating the Sierra Leone perinatal psychological distress scale through an emic-etic approach (2025) · cites this paper as Kaiser & Weaver, 2019
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Citations
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Tension Among Women in North India: An Idiom of Distress and a Cultural Syndrome
Weaver, L. J. (2017) · Culture Medicine and Psychiatry · doi:10.1007/s11013-016-9516-5 · Cited by 89
Kiyang-yang, a West-African Postwar Idiom of Distress
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Cited by
Sorted by citations
Lewis-Fernández, R., & Kirmayer, L. J. (2019) · Transcultural Psychiatry · doi:10.1177/1363461519861795 · Cited by 166
Haeffel, G. J., Jeronimus, B. F., Kaiser, B. N., Weaver, L. J., Soyster, P. D., Fisher, A. J., Vargas, I., Goodson, J. T., & Lu, W. (2021) · Clinical Psychological Science · doi:10.1177/21677026211002500 · Cited by 95
Self-citationPalmquist, A. E. L., Holdren, S., & Fair, C. D. (2019) · Social Science & Medicine · doi:10.1016/j.socscimed.2019.112648 · Cited by 80
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Metadata
- Authors
- Kaiser, B. N., & Jo Weaver, L.
- Affiliations
- University of California San Diego (US)
- University of Oregon
- Corresponding author
- Kaiser, Bonnie N.
- ORCID
- Kaiser, Bonnie N.
- Venue
- Transcultural Psychiatry
- Publisher
- SAGE Publications
- Published
- 2019-07-26
- Volume
- 56
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- 589-598
- ISSN
- 1363-4615 (ISSN-L)
- 1461-7471
- PMC
- PMC6724704
- OpenAlex
- W2966423182
- Cited by
- 120
- References
- 45
- Citations by year
- 2026: 31 · 2025: 21 · 2024: 15 · 2023: 14 · 2022: 12 · 2021: 22 · 2020: 2 · 2019: 3
- FWCI
- 59.90
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Locations
- Transcultural Psychiatry (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
- eScholarship (California Digital Library) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- National Institute of Mental Health (F32MH113288)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Philosophy › Mental Health and Psychiatry
- Social Sciences › Cultural Studies › Cultural, Psychoanalytic, and Sociopolitical Reflections
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Psychology and Mental Health
- Keywords
- idioms of distress, culture-bound syndromes, cultural concepts of distress, psychological anthropology
- MeSH terms
- Ethnopsychology, Humans, Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice, Language, Stress, Psychological
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