Collection · 11 entries
Culture-Bound Syndromes
A culture-bound syndrome is not a separate species of fear. It is a presentation shaped by a setting, and the DSM-5 makes the point itself by naming susto as a Cultural Concept of Distress rather than as a disorder. Sleep paralysis works the other way round: one physiology, reported for centuries, with the figure sitting on the chest supplied locally each time. Dhat syndrome and shenkui are the same anxiety about a lost fluid running on two different theories of the body, and the claim that either is culture-bound has been challenged by the discovery that eighteenth-century Europe had it too.
The rest of the set shows what the shaping does once it goes further than the imagery. Two of these have a cure rather than a treatment: sinbyeong ends with a ritual that is also a career, and the ritual is the medicine. Wendigo psychosis names a fear whose second symptom is the fear of the first. One has a geography exact enough to state in a sentence, a kayak on a mirrored sea with the horizon gone. Taijin kyofusho inverts Western social phobia, because what is feared is harming other people rather than being judged by them. The order runs from the case a diagnostic manual accepts to the cases where nothing in a manual applies.
Hand-set, never alphabetical
The set, in order
11 entries
- Fright SicknessThe case the DSM-5 names, and names as a Cultural Concept of Distress rather than a disorder
- Fear of Offending OthersFiled in the DSM-5 by name, and the inversion of Western social phobia: fear of harming others rather than of judgement
- Old Hag SyndromeOne physiology reported for centuries, with the figure on the chest supplied locally each time
- Fear of Semen LossClassified twice by the ICD-10, and the claim that it is culture-bound is contested from inside its own literature
- Fear of Losing Vital EssenceThe same anxiety as dhat on a different theory of the body, sustained by advertising for the cure
- Spirit SicknessAn illness whose cure is a job, where the ritual that ends it also confers the role
- Fear of Turning CannibalTwo symptoms held together, the second of which is the fear of the first
- Kayak AngstA geography, an occupation and a trigger that fits in one sentence: a mirrored sea and no horizon
- Ghost SicknessWhere a prohibition on mourning rituals is proposed as part of what produced the sickness
- Holy AnorexiaThe argument that it no longer exists because the coding of the behaviour changed, not the behaviour
- Fear of Being Cursed to DeathCannon's 1942 claim that fear alone can kill, resting on a case where nothing was actually done
Keep going
The other collections
- Words That Are Not PhobiasPhotophobia, homophobia, xenophobia, chromophobia. Where the suffix does scientific, political or sociological work instead of naming a fear.
- Medical and Dental FearsThe fears whose avoidance is itself the danger. Needles, dentists, doctors, hospitals and scans, and what avoiding each one costs the person avoiding it.
- Most Common PhobiasSpiders, heights, flying, the dentist, public speaking: the phobias most often called common, each with the prevalence figure the claim rests on.
- One Word, Two Different FearsAerophobia, phonophobia, basophobia: terms carrying two unrelated senses, with the collision traced and the usable meaning named.