ABSTRACT
The course of psychotherapy sheds light on the genesis and the internal dynamics of the disturbances involved against the background of the culture-specific psychical development of a young man living in an Anyi coffee-growing village located in the rain forest belt of the eastern Ivory Coast. Designation of the brain-fag syndrome as a consequence of acculturation is hardly more illuminating than the opinion held by the Anyi—that it is a disturbance in the spiritual equilibrium of the individual concerned. The purpose of the foregoing speculations is not merely to demonstrate once again the inadequacy of Western psychiatry in a non-Western society. The chapter shows that there is much to be gained by treating psychical ailments according to the established psychoanalytic model. Under these circumstances, it is not difficult to equate African with European psychopathology, and to trace back seemingly irreconcilable discrepancies to specific differences in ego formation, the organization of defenses, and libidinal fixation.
