Emil Kraepelin’s ideas on transcultural psychiatry

Abstract

Kraepelin assumed that illnesses with exterior causes depended on the type of stimulants widely used in a given culture. Since he found little evidence for progressive paralysis, he concluded that European brains were particularly prone to sequelae of syphilis. For endogenous psychoses he postulated differences in both symptoms and courses, depressions being rarer and milder, and ceasing sooner. By contrast, he found dementia praecox (mainly covered by the concept of schizophrenias later) to be the most prevalent mental illness in Java, explicitly different in form from that in Europe.

Some comparative psychiatric studies in the 19th century

“…Today a major focus of crosscultural psychiatry is on the consequences of globalization for mental health, and, especially, on the care of migrants (Kirmayer & Minas, 2000;Knischewitzki, Machleidt, & Calliess, 2013;Machleidt & Sieberer, 2013;Mastrogianni & Bhugra, 2003). Kraepelin's role as a founder of cross-cultural psychiatry has been reevaluated (Steinberg, 2015). The aim of this paper is to discuss some important cross-cultural studies published prior to Kraepelin's work in Java relevant to current debates in the field.…”