ABSTRACT
A satisfactory integration between psychoanalytic concepts and macro-sociological and historical concepts is provided by Silvano Arieti, in a paper titled “Some socio-cultural aspects of manic–depressive psychosis and schizophrenia”. In a work, Arieti and J. R. Bemporad also discuss the socio-cultural factors affecting depression. They start with the reported higher incidence of depression in women. The ethological approach can be usefully applied to community psychiatry and especially to the issue of prevention. G. Caplan, for instance, has a high regard for John Bowlby’s work for World Health Organisation and shares his ideas on the fundamental importance of mother–child relationships. In social psychiatry, the sociological variables to be studied should be based on what is known of the condition under study. An overview of the field is A. Kiev. J. W. Eaton and R. J. Weil may be regarded as also belonging to cross-cultural psychiatry.
