Citation: Alean Al-Krenawi. “Polygamy and Mental Health: an International Perspective”. EC Psychology and Psychiatry 1.1 (2016): 1-3. Polygamy The term polygamy is a Greek word meaning ‘‘the practice of multiple marriages’’ and is used in related ways in social anthropology, socio-biology, and sociology. Polygamy can be defined as a type of marriage practice or union that involves a number of p...

BACKGROUND There is little consensus on the extent to which psychiatric disorders or syndromes are universal or the extent to which they differ on their core definitions and constellation of symptoms as a result of cultural or contextual factors. This controversy continues due to the lack of biological markers, imprecise measurement and the lack of a gold standard for validating most psychiatri...

This chapter examines the relationship between culture-specific diagnoses and mood disorders. How researchers and clinicians refer to cultural syndromes related to mood disorders is a contentious issue. We open our chapter with a brief discussion of the history and controversies (as the quote from Hughes [1985] that opens this chapter indicates) surrounding these labels. We then discuss the rel...

OBJECTIVE To explore the views of sick doctors on the obstacles preventing them returning to work. DESIGN Qualitative study. SETTING Single participating centre recruiting doctors from all over the UK. PARTICIPANTS Doctors who had been away from work for at least 6 months with physical or mental health problems, drug or alcohol problems, General Medical Council involvement or any combinat...

We live in a culture that, for many historical and economic reasons, pathologizes many of the normal processes and responses of human growth and development— especially for women. The cultural reasons for this are deeply embedded in a 6,000 year-old process of systematic overrun of indigenous peoples by a culture based on exploitative, empire-building patriarchal values. Daniel Quinn, in his aw...

Boivin et al.’s (1) article profoundly deepens scientific understanding of anthropogenic global ecological change from Pleistocene to present by offering robust new evidence of early human transformation of the biosphere that should influence discussions on Anthropocene formalization (2, 3). As ecologists and evolutionary theorists, we applaud this work. However, we are also concerned that this...

BACKGROUND Cultural adaptation of mental health care interventions is key, particularly when there is little or no therapist interaction. There is little published information on the methods of adaptation of bibliotherapy and e-mental health interventions. OBJECTIVE To systematically search for evidence of the effectiveness of minimally guided interventions for the treatment of common mental ...

Culture-gene coevolutionary theory posits that cultural values have evolved, are adaptive and influence the social and physical environments under which genetic selection operates. Here, we examined the association between cultural values of individualism-collectivism and allelic frequency of the serotonin transporter functional polymorphism (5-HTTLPR) as well as the role this culture-gene asso...

Within the last decade, depressive experience and disorder has emerged as one of the world's major health and social problems (e. and racism and sexism) factors associated with the etiology, exacerbation, and maintenance of depressive experience and disorder. As a result of the increased worldwide risk and burden of depressive experience and disorders (Murray & Lopez, 1996), it is essential res...

Speech-language pathologists serving multicultural populations may encounter unfamiliar beliefs about speech disorders among the members of different cultures. This study used a questionnaire to look at attitudes toward four disorders (cleft palate, dysfluency, hearing impairment, and misarticulations) among 166 university students representing English-speaking North American culture and severa...