Culture bound syndrome

• Koro

  • Illness in southeast Asia and China
  • Sufferer spontaneously believes genitalia is shrinking away (often men, sometimes women)
  • Has history going back >1000 years
  • Can cause acute stress, damage from Quack medication, serious damage to genitalia in attempt to save them
• Hwa byung (rage virus) :

  • South Korea, estimated to affect 10,000 per year
  • Caused by bottling up feelings of unfairness or being wronged, until you succumb to physical symptoms like burning sensation
  • Common during divorces or dealing with in laws
  • 2009 brain scans show lower activity in area to do with emotion/impulse control
  • Linked to distress, social isolation, demoralisation, depression, physical pain, low self esteem, unhappiness
• Neurasthenia (shenjing shuairuo):

  • China and Southeast Asia (though disappearing slowly)
  • Historically found in white colonisers within Asia
  • Believed to be first caused by lifestyle upheaval during industrial rev, an exhaustion of the nervous system
  • Headaches, fatigue, anxiety
  • Some parts of Asia, more likely to say they have this than depression (2018, Guangzhou, 15.4% said they had former while only 5.3% said they had latter)
  • Historically seen as fashionable illness, and indicator of intellectual creativity
• Kyol goeu (wind overload) :

  • Prevalent in Khmer refugees (from Cambodia) in USA - in US psych hospital 36/100 Khmer patients experienced at least one episode
  • Believe channels in body contain wind like substance, when blocked a limb may be lost of death occurs
  • Starts with malaise feelings, than dizziness causing one to fall, after falling cannot speak or move - family members must massage limbs or bite ankles of Sufferer until they recover