Comments on "Culture as a Disability" Article

"... Disabilities are less the property of persons than they are moments in a cultural focus. Everyone in any culture is subject to being labeled and disabled... A disability may be a better display board for the weaknesses of a cultural system than it is an account of real persons... This paper is not about disabled persons. It is about the powers of culture to disable..."     /sci_cult/culturedisability.html

"Culture As Disability"

This statement really captured my interest and led me to ponder how mental illness is perceived in different cultures. It seems as though in the United States the population constantly strives to find certain mental diseases and classify ( and thus medicate) people that show symptoms of such mental illness. Of course, this treatment is often a success for countless individuals but I was curious to see how (or if) these same symptoms are perceived in different cultures. One of the first articles that appeared after I did a broad search was a Washington Post feature titled, Culture and Mental Illness: www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/discussion/2005/06/27/DI2005062701082.html.

I was most intrigued by this article as it spoke about how different symptoms of mental illness in different cultures often signify completely different diagnoses and therefore result in completely different forms of treatment. In addition, patients, depending on their culture, often interpret their symptoms in different ways. This essentially means that although the optimal treatment for two patients may theoretically be the same, because they are of different cultures and therefore potentially interpret their symptoms in different ways they are actually treated for two completely different illnesses.
These were just my initial thoughts and comments about this idea. I hope to explore it in greater detail in the near future.