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Abstract
Culture in its broadest sense is cultivated behavior; that is the totality of a person's learned, accumulated experience which is socially transmitted, or more briefly, behavior through social learning. A culture is a way of life of a group of people-the behaviors, beliefs, values, and symbols that they accept, generally without thinking about them, and that are passed along by communication and imitation from one generation to the next. However culture in it very broadest sense has strong association with psychopathology as well. The current paper attempts to explain psychopathology colored in aroma of culture and cultural phenomenon. The initial part focuses on the approaches to understand cross cultural psychopathologies. The paper also through light upon the various cross cultural theories of causes of illness. The last section of the paper explains cross cultural explorations of psychopathology revealing marked variations with reference to the manifestations of disease, the degree of disability it produces and the overall societal reaction to the common psychiatric illnesses.
Introduction
The term 'culture' is a central concept in anthropology. "Culture, taken in its ethnographic sense, is that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society. (Bullrich, 1989). For anthropologists and other behavioral scientists, culture is the full range of learned human behavior patterns. The term was first used in this way by the pioneer English Anthropologist Edward B. Tylor in his book, Primitive Culture, published in 1871. Thus culture tends to powerfully influence the individual as well group cognition, feeling and action. Culture also has an impact on all range of psychological processes. One of the key yardsticks to label abnormality and psychopathology is the accepted and prevalent societal norms which are directly contingent upon the culture. Thus culture has a direct impact on origin as well as maintenance of psychopathology in any society.
Universalistic and Relativistic approaches to cross-cultural psychopathology
The cross cultural psychopathology can be understood with regard two varying perspectives: The Universalist versus the Relativist. While the Universalists support the existence of a common human nature and of cross-cultural universals in the domain of perception and in some operations of human mind, and relativists, emphasize the relativity of cultures....