Some Characteristics of the Psychopathology of Schizophrenic Behavior in Bahian Society

Culture and schizophrenia

“…By contrast, visual hallucinations, seldom regarded as characteristic of, or frequent in, schizophrenia, are more common among African schizophrenics. Social withdrawal and emotional flattening, both accepted as important symptomatic facets of schizophrenia in the European tradition, appear to be less frequent in some cultures-for example, among the Bahians in Brazil (Stainbrook, 1952), or quite frequent in others (India, Mauritius, Japan) but of less ominous prognostic significance. The frequent occurrence of confusion, visual hallucinations, emotional lability, and disturbances of motility in acute schizophrenic states in cultures as wide apart as Nigeria and Indonesia makes the differential diagnosis from organic disorders a particularly difficult task.…”

Correlations Entre Les Hallucinations Visuelles Et Auditives Dans Une Population De Schizo- Phrenes Mexicains (Correlations Between Visual and Auditory Hallucinations in a Popu Lation of Mexican Schizophrenics) by Miguel Krassoievitch, Hector Perez-Rincon, and Pablo Suarez. Con frontations Psychiatriques 21 (1982): 149-62

“…Other patient characteristics, such as health-seeking behaviour, may be affected by culture, but in the area of diagnosis, once consistent criteria are used, homogeneity is the rule. In Bahia, an earlier study (Stainbrook 1952) revealed no conspicuous visual phenomena among schizophrenic patients. A major social psychiatric study in Rio (Brody 1973) surveyed 254 fiist-tinle hospital admissions and approximately 20 percent of these patients had experienced visual hallucinations, &dquo;mostly of animals, ghostly, folkloric or other non-human entities, occasionally under circumstances suggesting that they might have included illusory phenomena.&dquo; Unfortunately, the author does not indicate the association between specific diagnostic categories and these symptoms, so that we do not know what proportion of these hallucinating patients were schizophrenics.…”

Socio-cultural factors in mental disorder

“…With these cautions in mind we may proceed to a brief summary of the two most extensive surveys of the incidence of mental disorder in non-literate societies. Oiie of these, Carothers (1953), concerns itself with African groups and the other, Stainbrook (1952), with Negroes of Bahia, Brazil.…”