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Construction and interpretation of self-related function and dysfunction in Intercultural Psychiatry

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 April 2020

A. Heinz ,
F. Bermpohl  and
M. Frank
A. Heinz*
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Charité – Berlin, Germany
F. Bermpohl
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Charité – Berlin, Germany
M. Frank
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, University of Tuebingen, Germany
*
*Corresponding Author. E-mail address:Andreas.Heinz@charite.de (A. Heinz)
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Abstract

In several psychiatric disorders, key symptoms are associated with aspects of an individual, which are usually referred to as the “self”. For example in schizophrenia, it has been suggested that the activity of the self and the distinction between self and others are impaired. However, such models of the self and its dysfunction have been developed among Western societies and may not easily be transferred into different cultural settings, which can be characterized by alternative concepts of a person's self. This study compares traditional Western concepts of the self and its dysfunction with self-concepts developed in Caribbean, African and South-East-Asian societies.

This review demonstrates that “the self” is a fluid concept. Social function and dysfunction of such a self-concepts depend on a given cultural context. We argue that the cursive concept of the self is culturally constructed around cursive experiences which are shared by all human beings. Such universal experiences may include the prereflective access to individual thoughts and feelings, an automatic knowledge that (at least in non-pathological states) these emotions and cognitions belong to my self. Conscious self-reflection and its narrative articulation, on the other hand, is necessarily imbued with social and cultural norms, images and events, often of conflicting nature.

Keywords

Self-conceptPre-reflective self-awarenessSelf-referenceTranscultural psychiatryDysfunction of the self
Type
Research Article
Information
European Psychiatry , Volume 27 , Issue S2: Migration and Mental Health , June 2012 , pp. S32 - S43
Copyright
Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Masson SAS

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