ABSTRACT
The amount of literature on this subject grows almost by the day. It hooks the curiosity of anyone with an interest in psychiatry, because of the range and diversity of human societies and behaviour, and because of the ways in which the phenomenon we call mental illness is located within those settings. In the literature numerous accounts of mental distress in differing cultures jostle for our attention. Descriptions of the structure of Iranian society, the place of women within that structure and their expression of ‘heart distress’ compete for our attention with case studies of the lives of those traumatised by the cultural revolution in China. At one moment one can be considering the way of life of a small ‘primitive’ society in New Guinea and how its members meet the painful events in their lives, and the next moment one can be considering similar events and how they affect the lives of Buddhists in Sri Lanka. Such a body of literature cannot fail, at the very least, to engage interest and attention.
