Post by Admin on Aug 26, 2019 15:33:38 GMT
How non-industrial cultures view mental illness
Culture determines how mental illness or aberrant mental behavior is viewed and dealt with.
MIKE COLAGROSSI
05 November, 2018
bigthink.com/culture-religion/mental-illness-alan-watts-terrence-mckenna
"Behaviors considered mental illnesses by western psychology are seen differently — even positively — in so-called "primitive" societies.
Hearing voices and hallucinating, for example, can be the start of a spiritual awakening.
Westerners like Alan Watts and Terrence McKenna expressed concerned about ours definitions of mental illness.
Culture is the arbiter of our conscious reality. To say that it influences how we think and act would be an understatement. For the non-inquisitive or complacent mind, it can set us into the inane doldrums of prefabricated patterns we take to be both our day-to-day reality and how we even view our own psyches and world around us.
It comes as no surprise that it also has a significant effect on what we consider to be a normal psychological disposition.
In many traditional societies, mental distress is seen as a transitional period from one state to the next in order to confront a change in that person's life.
It's very unlikely that strange or novel behavior is seen as indicative of an underlying mental disorder. There are many cultures that don't even have words for what we call experiences like depression, schizophrenia or bipolar disorder.
Certain psychological phenomena such as possession or mania, which for the most part, Westerners feel the need to stamp out and put back in line with the rest of society and cure, are instead seen in a much different light in more tribal communities."
Rest in Link
Culture determines how mental illness or aberrant mental behavior is viewed and dealt with.
MIKE COLAGROSSI
05 November, 2018
bigthink.com/culture-religion/mental-illness-alan-watts-terrence-mckenna
"Behaviors considered mental illnesses by western psychology are seen differently — even positively — in so-called "primitive" societies.
Hearing voices and hallucinating, for example, can be the start of a spiritual awakening.
Westerners like Alan Watts and Terrence McKenna expressed concerned about ours definitions of mental illness.
Culture is the arbiter of our conscious reality. To say that it influences how we think and act would be an understatement. For the non-inquisitive or complacent mind, it can set us into the inane doldrums of prefabricated patterns we take to be both our day-to-day reality and how we even view our own psyches and world around us.
It comes as no surprise that it also has a significant effect on what we consider to be a normal psychological disposition.
In many traditional societies, mental distress is seen as a transitional period from one state to the next in order to confront a change in that person's life.
It's very unlikely that strange or novel behavior is seen as indicative of an underlying mental disorder. There are many cultures that don't even have words for what we call experiences like depression, schizophrenia or bipolar disorder.
Certain psychological phenomena such as possession or mania, which for the most part, Westerners feel the need to stamp out and put back in line with the rest of society and cure, are instead seen in a much different light in more tribal communities."
Rest in Link