ABSTRACT
The higher incidence of psychoneurotic syndromes found among White suicides in Durban, may in part be due to the recognition, awareness and acceptance of such syndromes in White culture. Africans and Indians are inclined to impute such personality disturbances to supernatural factors than to the more sophisticated concept of psychoneurosis. Blacks have a much higher incidence of psychoneurosis than reported; their ignorance of such maladies creating a false impression. On the other hand, it may well be that they actually have a lower rate of psychoneurosis. It is evident that cultural indoctrination plays an important part in inducing psychological ailments - a people’s vulnerability to both folk spirits and psychopathic states is dependent on the extent to which such ideas are present in their social system. During 1962-71, White women suicides revealed greater symptoms of deeply rooted emotional disturbance than White men - in 40 per cent of the female cases compared with 15 per cent of the male.
