Let us start with a little quiz. How many of these conditions have you heard of?
Taijin kyofusho, hikikomori, hwa-byung, or qi-gong psychotic reaction.
If your score was 0 out of 4, do not feel bad: your culture may be to blame. The first two conditions are mental illnesses largely endemic to Japan; the second two are endemic to China. Psychological disorders, or at least our labels for them, differ across cultures. But are these and other non-Western conditions truly distinct from those in the U.S. and Europe? Or does every mental malady, no matter how foreign-sounding in name, vary only in minor ways from a problem that is more familiar to us, such as depression or schizophrenia? link to read this article in Scientific American
Source: Scientific American
