The butterfly and the serpent: culture, psychopathology and biomedicine

Abstract

Cultural explanations of psychopathology in the West have rarely employed models derived by anthropologists for small-scale non-literate communities. Some general features of those ritual patterns usually classed as 'culture-bound syndromes' are applicable to Western neurosis. Such reactions articulate both personal predicament and public concerns, usually core structural oppositions between age groups or the sexes. They gain their power by relying on certain unquestionable assumptions which, although beyond everyday jural relationships, articulate such relationships. In the case of Western reactions, such 'mystical sanction' is provided by biomedicine. Theoretical paradigms emphasize either the individual pragmatic or expressive aspects, or social homeostasis.