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PaperclipPerfector  2yr ago (text post)   3755 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for October 29, 2023

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Does anyone have a good source for a deep dive into the dichotomy of schizophrenia between first world and third world countries? It's a commonly cited fact (myth?) that it presents differently in different cultures - i.e. in America schizophrenics often experience paranoia, violent episodes, ideations of suicide or self-harm, while in sub-Saharan Africa their symptoms manifest as religious experiences. A recent culture war thread comment suggested the possibility that genuinely violent, dangerous schizophrenics in third world countries are quietly abandoned or disposed of, but didn't cite any sources. Is this even a real phenomenon? Is there any useful research into it?

  1. Some mental disorders are more culturally bound than others, with Schizophrenia being something we see pretty much everywhere with similar patterns but different content being common.
  2. Severity of symptoms is variable, with some with most people experiencing a step-wise decline but with the extent of this being variable.
  3. Less severe or alarming symptoms means less presentation for help ex: hallucinations not being as distressing they can be not as bad, or fit better in the cultural milieu (think religious delusions back in the day), or if someone is more negative symptom predominant (think apathetic, reserved, anti-social).
  4. Religious delusions are common but tend to be unsurprisingly related to the culture at hand. Same for other delusions and hallucinations. Someone in rural Africa might think the chief of the next village over is out to get him, where an American might think it's Joe Biden etc.
  5. Manic episodes and full blown psychosis were historically deadly. If you were manic in a pub in London in 1630 you might get killed in a bar fight and nobody cares or you might end up summarily executed by the police for being a total idiot. It would not surprise me if the same phenomena happens today in certain places.
  6. Not sure if we'd have good quality of research on this though.

I should note that Western psychosis is more likely to be dangerous because of things like easy access to weapons, poor policing, good social safety net etc. Remove those things and they are likely to get killed, unable to arm people, exiled, whatever is my thought.

It's not like violence is Wester specific - read the wiki page on running amok for an interesting example.

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