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Culture Bound Syndromes

 

 

Copyright 2003 -  Edit Sunday March 16, 2008 08:08:47 PM -0600

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When I began this project I understood that if Subliminal Distraction and the Conflict of Physiology were a serious stressor for mental illness, they, evidenced by the episodes caused by the phenomenon, would appear everywhere around the world.

 

Culture Bound Syndromes are part of the proof that this is so.

 

When family groups live in too-small single-room arrangements or when large groups live in a compact single-room or other structure the proximity of the individuals will eventually create Subliminal Distraction exposure.

We all witnessed video of the Virginia Tech shooter ranting his psychotic paranoid delusions. Cho had created this same situation when he used the suite common room as a study area where roommates walked by ignoring him.

If the shooting incident had happened in a business it would have met the definition of Going Postal, a Culture Bound Syndrome of the United States

If it had happened in Malaysia it would have been called Amok. Different weapons would have been used and the ethnic culture would have shaped the details but the episode would have been the same.

In the 1830's too-small fur trappers cabins created Subliminal Distraction. The berserk episode of violence was called Cabin Fever.

Two person dorm rooms create the same opportunity if the study desks do not have Cubicle Level Protection. Suicides and disappearances of college students are outcomes of this exposure. Other CBS's around the world produce thoughts of suicide.

Depression, as an  outcome of SD exposure, can be seen in the failed experiences of Qi Gong and Kundalini Yoga. Qi Gong Psychotic Reaction is a CBS of China that is included in the DSM. Depression is one outcome of other CBS's in the list of syndromes below.

This establishes, or points to the conclusion,  that clinical depression has a single cause, Subliminal Distraction, and is not connected to brain disease or chemical imbalances.

A new page, a text only article, has been started. You may be more comfortable reading that first then returning to this page of research notes. Click Here

 

This page is not just a listing of Culture Bound Syndromes.

I intend to demonstrate the cause of Culture Bound Syndromes.

They are a poorly understood concept.

Although believed to be caused by local ethnic and cultural stresses,                        

                             some of them appear world wide independent of culture.

 

This site does not diagnose or offer treatment but prevention may help with these symptoms.

Click this line to skip the introductory text about this site.

Click this line to skip to the list of Syndromes.

 

 

 

This site has been said to be confusing and difficult. That is because it is a psychology project.

The text is unfinished and there is missing information. Do the best you can.

This site is about a conflict of human physiology that shaped history but was undetected  until the 1960's.

In the entire history of man on the planet Earth this phenomenon was discovered only once.

It caused mental breaks for office workers.

 

You will find this material hard to believe.

This phenomenon is explained in first semester psychology lectures where students don't believe it either.

 

For that reason I wrote a demonstration that will allow you to experience the phenomenon.

The Everquest Connection page has the explanation and assumes you have not taken basic psychology.

 

The solution for this problem was the office Cubicle.

This site argues that the this phenomenon causes College Suicides and Missing Students.

The phenomenon causes mental events around the world, Chaco Canyon.

If you use computers in unprotected workspace such as homes, dorms, student apartments, and small business offices read  ...Prevention... at the bottom of most pages.

Long  term exposure can cause severely altered mental states. Qi Gong  Kundalini Yoga

If you are visiting the site as part of a school project send the person responsible for controlling violence at your school to this site.

 

This site gets many hits on a search string "state of mental illness Malaysia." If you are in Malaysia and can supply information on the habits and occupations of victims of Amok email the Webmaster. Researcher

 

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Culture Bound Syndromes

(Current edit begins  here 03/16/2008.)

 

Introduction

Culture Bound Syndromes and Culture Specific Diseases are not the same phenomenon. Diseases are caused by pathogens,  physical conditions, or infections.  CBS's are behaviors that may include physical symptoms. 'Widely Held Beliefs' are ethnic explanations for physical conditions. They are sometimes said to be 'Idioms of Distress.'

 

This page argues that a single phenomenon is causing many of the Culture Bound Syndromes. Once you understand this you may eliminate some suggested syndromes and add other disorders that are not now considered CBS's

 

Culture Bound Syndromes have been included in the DSM for the first time. Because investigators do not know what causes them some physical illnesses may be included on web pages about CBS's. These are common diseases which have local or ethnic names and descriptions. In primitive parts of the world magic worked against the sufferer is often blamed for illness.

Through the centuries there have been mental breaks that changed the course of history. The cause of those mental breaks would not be discovered until designers made a mistake in building the first close-spaced office workstations beginning in the 1950's.

Haworth introduced the first room partition walls in 1953. Herman Miller introduced the Action Office One in 1964, and by 1968 had added side-vision-blocking panels to it.

The Cubicle became the industry standard to prevent those mental breaks in business offices. The phenomenon is called Subliminal Distraction in other countries. I have not found a name for it in the United States. Subliminal Distraction has another meaning in psychology here.

Those designers and the psychologists that solved the problem did not understand what they had found. They thought they had caused the problem for the first time and they only applied the discovery to office design. . But incidents such as the Belgian Polar Expedition of 1898/99 had already happened. Cabin Fever had appeared during  the fur trapping period in the United States. And Jumping Frenchmen of Maine Disease had already been discovered and evaluated, 1880's.

 

Those three incidents and phenomena have significance to understanding Culture Bound Syndromes.

 

Start buy grouping CBS's into two sections. There will be overlap so we begin with obvious mental events. When we finish there will still be some CBS's that cannot be placed in a group because of conflicting information or just the dearth of information about the syndrome.

 

Included in the listings of Culture Bound Syndromes are mental events. These may be grouped in two ways.

 

The first grouping:

This list conforms to the general diagnosis Brief Psychotic Disorder.

 

 

A second Grouping:

This grouping is about activities that engage the  conflict of physiology explored on this site.

The effected person had an occupation or activity which included:

These two groups overlap. Confusion arises because symptoms may vary from the violence of Amok to the strange behavior of removing clothes and running across snow and ice.

Investigators of Culture Bound Syndromes have been missing a key piece of information. That is the existence of a conflict of physiology.

The DSM is a collection of observations to  group mental disorders into mood disorders and psychotic disorders. This system of categorization fails when Culture Bound Syndromes are considered because the behaviors are not similar. There is no apparent common observed behavior for most CBS's. The jumping diseases, plus  Amok, Going Postal and Iich'aa are exceptions to that. And that's where the information to understand them all is.

 

_____________________________

Beginning text for full article. This is a draft text and the material above will be included in the final version of the article.

Remember that this page represents notes for research. You may read or quote with attribution but the final version may be very different from this text.

 

Some Culture Bound Syndromes have the same cause.

The long text explanation that began on this page has been moved. It is now the first draft of an article. Here

 

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The Template

 

There are three items that create the template to cause exposure to this phenomenon.

If the subject has the ability to ignore the reflexes the phenomenon is engaged. Many hours daily for many days are required to cause the mental break. ICU Psychosis may be the exception. Humans see by reflected light so that lighting must be adequate.

If the subjects are sensitive to or have increased abilities to detect threat movement, ADD and ADHD in children or Panic Attacks in adults are possible outcomes. One of the unfathomed features of ADD and ADHD is that children seem to "grow out of it." The syndromes stop when too-close side-by-side seating in class rooms stop. Panic attacks can start and stop for no apparent reason.

Scattered around the Internet are anecdotal stories of individuals whose panic attacks stopped when they changed apartments or found new employment.

As a historical note single-room living arrangements allow the "special conditions" to be created. These exist around the world as traditional ethnic housing.

Traditional Navajo hogans are single-room living spaces. http://waltonfeed.com/peoples/navajo/hogan.html

 

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Conflict of Physiology

The conflict of our physiology explored on this site is that although you can ignore  peripheral vision reflexes, the physiology of human sight will not allow you to  'stop seeing' the movement that causes them. You cannot tell your brain to stop subliminally detecting that movement and attempting to force the reflex.

The phenomenon is silent, painless and invisible. Neither victims nor observers will be aware that exposure is happening.

Engineers designing the first close-spaced office workstations discovered the phenomenon when Knowledge workers using their first production examples began to have bizarre or psychotic episodes. The Modern Cubicle

 

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Accidental Operant Conditioning

Operant conditioning does not work well with humans because we have knowledge of self and of our surroundings. The detection of threat movement happens subliminally so we are never aware our subconscious is being bombarded with a stimulus. Humans have two vision systems conscious sight and peripheral vision. The physiology of sight is such that the two systems have separate channels into the brain.

Our far peripheral vision covers two separate vision fields rather than the overlapping fields of conscious sight. This is monocular vision. If far peripheral vision did not function subliminally we could not resolve those two peripheral vision fields with conscious sight.

When you ignore peripheral vision reflexes the connection to consciousness is broken. If your brain perceives the continuing stimulus as reinforcement of contemporaneous thought or activities, operant conditioning happens.

In the case of Qi Gong the reinforcement is positive to create the belief you are improving health through the direction and balancing  of Qi, "chee," within the body.

Psychology lectures explain that as the repeating reflexes are ignored a conflict arises then builds to a mental break.

This produces the psychotic episode of Qi Gong. Most authoritative sites on Qi Gong now acknowledge that the psychotic episodes happen when too many exercise sessions are done in a compact time frame. Those sites do not know what causes the psychotic episodes.

Periods of stationary eyes-closed meditation, in Kundalini Yoga, shorten the eyes-open exercise portion of the session. That limits the number of threat detection incidents and spreads those instances over time from session to session. There are fewer detection incidents per hours of exercise.

This has the opposite effect from what you would expect.

Short intense periods of stimulation caused by these threat detection incidents produces a temporary episode. Most resolve with no  treatment. But low levels of stimulation that are  repeated for long periods of time, produce permanently altered, psychotic, mental states. Panic Attacks are created with some rates of exposure. It is not clear how the different outcomes are caused.

The onset of psychiatric symptoms in Kundalini Yoga, as the mental event approaches, is viewed as a desired result. Participants are told that the perceived effects, and the altered mental state, is the Awakening of Kundalini.

 

 

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Engineering Discovery

Just after WWII and the Korean War a group of business men hired designers and engineers to research and redesign the business office. They wanted to make moveable workstations that could be grouped for different projects. At that time there were no computers and all engineering work was done in very large rooms with row after row of desks, and drafting tables.

The Bull Pen system was used in other places. This system is a private office for managers with a large outer room for other workers. The workers sat at open unprotected desks. You can see this type office arrangement any night on episodes of Barney Miller, Law and Order, and NYPD Blue.

Nervous Breakdowns, now called Dissociative Mental Breaks, happened and no one knew what caused them. Mental weakness of the victim was often believed to be the cause. This form of sexism, ethnic and cultural racism still dominates the thinking behind the DSM.  See: Cause of Psychotic Mental Illness.

An example of a mental event caused by the defective workplace design is the disappearance of Mary Shotwell Little.

 

 

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Peripheral Vision Reflexes

Peripheral vision reflexes are an evolutionarily developed, retained, warning system. For early man or pre-humans to survive they needed a system to warn  them of predators approaching from behind. To function it must work all the time no matter what  you are doing. If you had the ability to turn the brain system off at will, it could not warn you in critical situations.

The act of concentrating on something at arm's length, in your hand for instance, causes physiological changes in the eye.

When you focus on a close object your eye accommodates by changing the shape of the lens.  This shape-change expands the area covered by Subliminal Peripheral Vision.

Plitz's reflex, or Attention Reflex, changes the size of  your pupil. This floods the retina with ambient light desensitizing the rods so that only a large movement close by will trigger a reflex.

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The Syndromes

This list includes items not considered to be CBS's. As I develop this page I will clarify the reason for this. Until I can finish use the page links to access VPN site pages about alien abduction phenomenon, ADD-ADHD, the Awakening of Kundalini, and Panic Attacks

Some material may not apply but will be left in place while the investigation continues.

Scroll through  the expanded definitions below to find causation. Some syndromes have more than one entry.

 

 

 

Other psychiatric syndromes and events.

 

 

Spirit Possession

Spirit possession is viewed on this site as a combination of a psychotic episode, hallucination, and hearing voices. Over time the subject accepts this altered mental state and it becomes a learned behavior. The article linked below has a different outlook and discusses spirit possession in the DSM.

In primitive societies being able to communicate with ancestors is held in high esteem.  The initial episode is caused by exposure to Subliminal Distraction but group acceptance rewards the subject to repeat the behavior. This is not intentional deception. The subject believes that he or she has the power to speak to or for the dead. Many CBS's involving a dissociative episode include amnesia of the events during the acute phase. With repeated exposure they do hear the voices and begin to experience bizarre beliefs.

These beliefs appear in long term users of Qi Gong. They hold beliefs that are impossible (superhuman strength, supernatural powers) and cannot be dissuaded from those beliefs.

 The DSM does not consider episodes of possession psychotic if the culture accepts the belief and it caused the subject no life limiting problems.

In Christian beliefs the spirit possession includes speaking in tongues.

"If therefore, the whole church assembles, and all speak in tongues, and outsiders or unbelievers enter, will they not say that you are mad?. . .do not forbid speaking in tongues, but all things should be done decently and in order (I Corinthians, 14)."

These episodes appeared in early church history witnessed by the quote from St. Paul's letter. Speaking in tongues is sought by charismatic believers as evidence that they have achieved contact with the Holy Spirit. Today speaking in tongues can be an emotionally based behavior but in the early church it was most likely caused by exposure to Subliminal Distraction in small rooms where services would have been held to escape detection by civil authorities.

 

http://www.meta-religion.com/Psychiatry/Demonic_possesion/possession_experience.htm

Reprint of case history from GQ magazine, August 1999.

"Psychiatrists and psychologists around the country, at major universities and hospitals, are studying religious experience as a natural, complex human phenomenon, and many of these professionals, noting the seeming similarities between religious ecstasy and psychosis, have concluded that psychosis and mysticism are closely related conditions, maybe so close that the differences lie only in the way society judges them."

The point on this site is the two experiences are similar because they are created by exposure to the same phenomenon. EST produced a few psychotic episodes. All those subjects did was listen to a speaker while sitting in a 'large group training seminar.'  See the EST VPN site page.  Follow up with the Hutterite CBS Anfechtung below.

http://www.spiritualcompetency.com/dsm4/cases/gooding.htm

 

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Other observed disorders that may not be Culture Bound Syndromes.

 

These may be local ethnic explanations of symptoms caused by illness.

 

Dhat Syndrome - India - Belief that semen is being passed in urine and that the victim has impotence and premature ejaculation. Occasionally women complain of Dhat when they have leucorrhea, white vaginal discharge. Symptoms are guilt, anxiety, weakness, palpitations, and insomnia.

If investigation shows that the victims have exposure to Subliminal Distraction sufficient to cause psychopathology then this would be a CBS.

 

The link below right is a major paper from the British Journal of Psychiatry.

http://bjp.rcpsych.org/cgi/content/full/184/3/200

This journal article briefly mentions Dhat and states that it is a widely held belief not delusional. Victims use the expression to explain illness.

http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/315/7106/473

 

 

Gilahari Lizard Syndrome  - India - is a belief that a blood filled swelling is moving toward the neck and will stop the victim's breathing  if it is not crushed. In the one case cited the swelling was thought to be on the back.

If the belief that a swelling is moving to the neck is a hallucination, then suspicion that Lizard Syndrome is a CBS would be raised. The first question to ask is what activities do victims have that would expose them to repeating Subliminal Distraction. The next problem is what happens in the culture to create this fear. The fear is too specific unless there is communication of the proposed malady between victims. The citing article reported that other women interviewed stated that they too had experienced the problem.

Example: Windigo Psychosis is the belief that someone is being stalked by or that they are becoming the Windigo. The Windigo is a fable, the bogeyman of Native American Folk Lore. When the dissociative episode happens the knowledge of the Windigo is in the person's mind. What placed the fear of swellings moving under the skin in the minds of victims of Lizard Syndrome?

In those two cases. Dhat and Gilahari Lizard Syndrome, the victim would have had a silent mental event. If the same sensations recorded in the physio-Kundalini complex are present and they might supply the stimulus to create the delusional episode. But the nature of that episode is and must be shaped by the victims previous experience and memory.

There are ample examples of mass hysteria that have little connection to reality.

http://www.ijponline.org/Jan/indIJPJanGilahari.html

 

Nodding syndrome  -  Sudan - Children begin to nod at the sight of food - said to progress to seizures, mental retardation, and death from the inability to eat. If true then it would seem to be the onset of a neurological disorder. One site mentioned that EEG and Neurological investigations support that it is a progressive brain disease.  Small children in the Sudan  would not nave been exposed to Subliminal Distraction but thirteen year-olds would.  One hospital reports some recoveries.

"When it comes, it looks like a black cloud but in the shape of a human," said Martha. "That's all I know. At the end, I find myself on the floor."
 

It may be that symptoms of exposure to Subliminal Distraction that are seen in victims of Nodding Syndrome are there because anyone, especially those who are weak and stationary in bed can be exposed to Subliminal Distraction. It would appear as dual diagnosis. ICU Psychosis is an example. It would have no association with the neurological disease. There isn't enough information or cases to evaluate the possibility.

 Has personal account of victim and candy quote. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/01/28/health/main596493.shtml

http://www.medterms.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=26604

WHO Southern Sudan Health Update http://www.who.int/disasters/repo/9182.pdf

 News story includes reported recoveries. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/02/03/health/main597751.shtml

 

Mal de Ojo ("evil eye") or just "Ojo"

A syndrome usually of children the symptoms are vomiting, diarrhea and fever, it occurs in Mediterranean and Hispanic  areas. This appears to be an illness with a local ethnic name, not a CBS. Other sites list the phrase as an expression of distress. Like Dhat it is an explanation of illness and a widespread belief..

Folk beliefs include the superstition that immediate touching of the perpetrator will prevent the disease. Cures include passing a egg over the victim (rubbing),  then observing the progress of the egg's condition when broken in a bowl and placed under the bed of the sufferer. Healers may claim that resistance between the egg and skin can diagnosis the disease.

Although fright can be so severe that vomiting happens, fever is not usually a symptom of a mental event. Young children being involved is also an eliminator for Culture Bound Syndromes. They do not have sufficient attention span to be victims of Subliminal Distraction.

Outside the US in small countries the classroom seating that copies the design problem would not be enough to cause symptoms.

Too close living arrangements with other siblings moving around the stationary concentrating child would cause exposure.  (In the 1930's the incidence of Schizophrenia was higher in cities compared to rural rates. This made investigators believe deprivation caused Schizophrenia. But the low income groups would have had many family members in tiny apartments.)

 

Although some connection to dissociation might appear there is no reference located so far. That means that Mal de Ojo is an "idiom of distress" used to account for normal illness.

http://www.rice.edu/projects/HispanicHealth/Courses/mod7/ojo.html

 

 

CVS - Cyclical Vomiting Syndrome is included here because of the vomiting symptom. I have just located this problem. Children and adults have repeating episodes of vomiting. They happen at unpredictable times. Some advance to the point that emergency treatment is necessary to prevent dehydration. The cause is unknown.

 

Nakalanga Syndrome - Uganda - Similar to Nodding Syndrome - Symptoms are convulsions, stunted growth and nodding. CJD has been suspected. One victim nodded with local food but not American food including candy bars. The WHO investigated the problem in 2002. Age of one victim given as 13. Victims die from neurological degeneration.

It is possible that children who have degenerative brain diseases are less active, sit and watch others, or daydream. If that is true they could have a dual diagnosis to confuse symptoms.

 

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=8651377&dopt=Abstract

 

Nervios

Symptoms include headache, claimed brain ache, emotional labiality, tearfulness, sleep problems and anxiety, among Latinos in the US and Latin America. There isn't enough specificity to conclude that this syndrome includes mental events.

As with the other suspected CBS's above investigations to find if victims have exposure to Subliminal Distraction would change that.

 

 

sangue dormido (sleeping blood)

Found in Portuguese Cape Verdeans, the symptoms include pain, numbness, shaking, convulsions, blindness, heart attack, infection, stroke, and miscarriage. That list of symptoms would not involve a mental event. It is not clear how this syndrome should be evaluated. Many sites list these as "idioms of distress." They are local names for disease but many unrelated problems are included. Some of the symptoms are found in the physio-kundalini complex surrounding the Awakening of Kundalini. (More information is needed here.)

 

Wind Illness - p'a leng - wei han zheng

The effected person has a fear of being cold or of the wind. Victims associate this with a unbalance of Yang. The person does things that would keep them warm. ( Another description is needed here The sources available do not list enough symptoms to evaluate this syndrome.) Ethnic Chinese in China and Southeast Asia  are effected. This may be an illness rather than a CBS. There is no reference to dissociation or to specific mental events or sudden onset.

Thu, 10 May 2001 13:00:29 -0400
Reply-To:     TCPSYCH - Transcultural Psychiatry Discussion

"In recent years, koro has almost disappeared from the Chinese diaspora in the Malacca Straits and Singapore. "It's almost as if changing social conditions produce changing syndromes," the doctor muses. But it has been replaced by equally strange phenomena. Ng himself has noticed a condition that the Chinese call wei han zheng, or "fear of being cold." Ng calls it frigophobia. Patients bundle up in the steamy Singapore heat, wearing wool hats and gloves. Like koro, he explains, frigophobia seems to stem from Chinese cultural beliefs about the spiritual qualities of heat and cold. "I don't really know," he laughs. "Maybe it's just a reaction to mass air-conditioning. Frigophobia is so new, it doesn't even exist in the psychiatric literature. So far, it's unique to Singapore. I'm as perplexed by it as anyone else. I wonder if it will be in D.S.M.-V."...

http://lists.mcgill.ca/scripts/wa.exe?A2=ind0105b&L=tcpsych&D=0&P=857

 

 

 

 

 

Sub-Groupings of Syndromes

The obvious grouping is of the cold weather events. These happen when two or more people are confined for long periods in small living spaces by cold weather in sub arctic and arctic areas. There would be many opportunities for the subliminal detection of threat movement in those situations.

When one person begins working on anything requiring concentration they can subliminally detect movement of the others in the small room. The activity need not be complicated. Repairing tools or clothes, creating craft articles to pass time all qualify. Reading  or daydreaming also qualifies.

It is not obvious that Latah belongs in this group. There is no cold weather in Malaysia. But there entire villages live in longhouses. The same activities done to pass time in cold weather must be done near the windows or doors of longhouses to have sufficient light. Villagers walking in and out those doors and beside that concentrating crafts person would create exposure. Bunkhouse living quarters would have been used in lumber camps in 1880 Maine. That would link Jumping Frenchmen of Maine for both cold weather living quarters and a large group in a one room building. In the Belgian Polar Expedition eighteen men were confined in a small sailing ship for months. With little to do and in extreme cold weather they sat inside for long periods.

 

A second grouping involves attacks on persons or things. Going Postal, Amok and others are in this group. The Post Office in the United States has never provided Cubicle Level Protection. When exposure happens to someone with an ongoing dispute that dispute is the central focus of the dissociative episode. Peripheral vision reflexes usually happen when movement is detected coming from behind. That constant subliminal input creates a sense of being watched or of something being behind you. That is translated into paranoia. Operant conditioning then acts to raise the perception of the dispute, in the mind of the victim, to a level where  violence seems a reasonable path to resolution. Modern Cubicle page.

 

 

 

 

Sub-Groupings entries have not been written. The five paragraph headings below are the planned sub-groupings..

 

Jumping Diseases ...

While it is easy to see the connection between Jumping Frenchmen of Maine and Latah because both affected groups lived in single-room arrangements, bunkhouses and longhouses, the conditions for exposure to Subliminal Distraction can happen almost anywhere. The startle behavior is too widespread to be caused by a genetic connection usually seen in a limited population. There have been single cases of the behavior of matching actions and command performance even in factory workers in the United States.

There have been many papers written about the attention seeking of Latahs in Malaysian society. This does happen. But this is a learned behavior or adaptation to the disease not its cause.

 

Sudden Violent Attacks ...

When the stimulation of movement detection and the brain's subliminal efforts to create a startle or reflex is perceived as reinforcement of contemporaneous activity it shapes thought. Most threat movement detection happens when there is an approach from behind. When we ignore the startle and lose knowledge of the continuing action to warn us, we begin to feel that we are being watched or that there is something behind us. Over many instances of attempted vision reflexes that sensation, subliminally, begins to color thought. This is the source of paranoia.

When the expected mental break happens the victim acts out that psychotically colored belief system with violence.

Depression ...

The incident aboard the Belgica in 1898 points to depression as an outcome from exposure to Subliminal Distraction. Today the belief in psychiatry is that depression is the cause of psychotic episodes. But that incident says that normal people subjected to Subliminal Distraction lose the will to do anything even to eat.

Anxiety ...(Paranoia)

Again, the Belgica incident points to psychotic paranoia as an outcome of exposure to Subliminal Distraction. One man began to hide in small remote parts of the ship to sleep. He thought that the others were plotting to kill him.

Suicides ...

 

 

 

Sub-Groupings will be the Jumping Diseases first then  the group including Amok, Going Postal and Iich'aa, and Cabin Fever. The connection is that both groups are caused in similar circumstances and exposure to Subliminal Distraction. Operant conditioning evaluated as the cause of the Jumping Diseases functions to create paranoia, then paranoia colors thought when there is a dispute to create the violent attacks near the point of a mental break. Note that there is no discrete mental break in the Jumping Diseases.

 

 

 

 

Expanding the explanation of the Syndromes. (unfinished) Some Syndromes are mentioned more than once. Scroll down to the alphabetical location of your search term to double check progress on the page.

 

Using  the definitions discussed here:

Has there ever been a blind victim of a Culture Bound Syndrome?

Is there a Culture Bound Syndrome  that  only happens to the blind?

 

Ainu (see see also INU)

The Ainu are a racial minority subgroup in Japan. They are sometimes called the northern people or aborigines of Japan. They are racially separated because they are heavily bearded  and have Caucasian features.  The one listing from Psychiatric Times, APS page has little information. But if the group is in Arctic or Sub-arctic areas then this would connect Jumping Frenchmen of Maine, and Latah to another ethnic and geographic location.

I found one listing under the name Ainu. There is another listing of Inu among the group Ainu in Japan.

http://pn.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/content/full/39/22/22-a

Symptoms found so far match some symptoms of  JFMD and Latah, hyper-startle, command behaviors, and expressed obscenities.

 

Alien Abduction Syndrome

These events are not recognized as CBS's.  Abduction researchers are not aware of the conflict of physiology and that alien abduction experiences are created in the confusion of a sudden onset dissociative/psychotic episode. (Think of vivid panic attacks as nightmares during  the dissociative event.)  Abductees are not lying. They had an experience and can pass lie detector testing. Missing time is often cited as proof that an event did happen. But a dissociative mental break causes missing time and either  partial or full amnesia of events during the episode.

The seminal  case of abduction was Barney and Betty Hill in 1961. Barney was a postal worker. He had been ill for months with stress related complaints. But for the intervention of his doctor and hypnosis, Barney's health would have continued to decline. The incident is reviewed in depth on the Hill Abduction page.

Post Abduction Syndrome (PAS) Description of an Emerging Syndrome Proposed by Rose Hargrove, RN February 14, 2000


"Post Abduction Syndrome (PAS) (Westrum, 1986) is an anxiety disorder that is closely related to Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (APA, 1994). It is characterized by the re-experiencing- of abduction related memories, fragments, or distortions of those memories and is accompanied by symptoms of increased anxiety and by avoidance of stimuli related to abduction memories or abduction related events. The affected person may experience levels of anxiety that interfere with functioning in personal, occupational, or social areas."

The site has pictures drawn by children of their experiences and an interview  with David M. Jacobs, Ph.D. of Temple University.

http://aliensandchildren.org/post_abduction_syn.htm

 

Stop Alien Abductions

"The thought screen helmet blocks telepathic communication between aliens and humans. Aliens cannot immobilize people wearing thought screens nor can they control their minds or communicate with them using their telepathy.  When aliens can't communicate or control humans, they do not take them."

Remember that suggestibility from exposure to subliminal Distraction is evidenced by the command behaviors of Jumping Frenchmen of Maine Disease and Latah.

http://www.stopabductions.com/

 

 

 

ADD and ADHD

These two class room phenomenon are not considered a CBS. The method of grouping used by the DSM causes this confusion. It has not occurred to the authors of the DSM that the fact that the problem happens only to school children and disappears as they reach adult age makes them CBS's. Compare them to Brain Fag of West Africa. (Recent studies show similar behavior in adults but the disorder continues into adulthood for very very few. For adults, failure to provide Cubicle Level Protection in the workplace is a potential cause.)

In Africa young children are taught in small groups and in less formal situations than in developed countries. Shouting the lessons is one method to expedite learning. There is no concentration involved when they all participate and interact. But these youngsters go on  to formal high school and college. Western influence and world aid societies are building school houses in Africa so that the syndromes will appear there also. Too-close side-by-side seating in class rooms copies the too-close unprotected workstations of the 1950's and early 1960's. It will take you a minute of thinking about it to realize this but it is the same.

There are no individual episodes as there are in the exotic CBS's. It is more a problem of constant subliminal distraction. This is evidenced when students cannot concentrate to take exams unless they are isolated.

How does someone outgrow a mental disorder? ADD and ADHD stop in early adult hood because the effected students no longer sit in classrooms.

 

Answers.Com

This site has a variety of definitions and articles which encompass current beliefs about ADD and ADHD. There is a history page also.

http://www.answers.com/topic/attention-deficit-hyperactivity-disorder

 

A Thesis posted at Bryn Mawr argues a connection to CBS's for ADD and ADHD but no connection is stated.

http://faculty.oxy.edu/tobin/honors/rob/robdraft3.html

 

 

 

 

Amafufunyana

Occurring in the Zulux and Xhosas, the syndrome produces hearing voices which victims believe come from their stomach. The voices may speak in different languages or in tongues. Victims exhibit extreme agitation, may break possessions,  become extremely tired, lose appetite, speak in tongues, have command hallucinations, disturbed  sleep, nightmares, and episodes of angry outbursts . The phenomenon has caused mass episodes where some school children had swollen stomachs attributed to witchcraft.

African tribes use single-room huts as housing. These can be seen on many Internet pages. Those living arrangements allow the detection of movement in peripheral vision when anyone performs activity requiring concentration.

Without instruction in the complexity of the disorders of the DSM the villagers attribute hearing voices to witchcraft. The excerpt from the South African book liked below explains how the potions to cast the spells are made. Each primitive group interprets the onset of a mental break, first psychotic break,  in terms of their local ethnicity and belief system. Other belief systems attribute the voices to ancestors speaking to them.

Other mass episodes have occurred in regions of Africa over the years. Religious and ethnic cultural beliefs support these mass occurrences. There is no information available to further evaluate this syndrome but included in the list of symptoms are the same things that happen to other victims on this page.

Excerpt from South African Psychology Text   http://www.health24.com/mind/Culturebound_syndromes/1284-1304,13257.asp

Connection to Schizophrenia suspected- Abstract  http://content.karger.com/ProdukteDB/produkte.asp?Doi=77579

 

 

A Culture-Bound Syndrome 'Amafufunyana' and a Culture-Specific Event 'Ukuthwasa': Differentiated by a Family History of Schizophrenia and other Psychiatric Disorders
D.J.H. Niehaus, P. Oosthuizen, C. Lochner, R.A. Emsley, E. Jordaanb, N.I. Mbanga, N. Keyter, C. Laurent, J.-F. Deleuze, D.J. Stein
Psychopathology 2004;37:59-63 (DOI: 10.1159/000077579)
 Abstract:

"The culture-bound syndrome amafufunyana and the culture-specific phenomenon of ukuthwasa are both used to explain symptoms in patients with schizophrenia (DSM-IV). Identification of cases as amafufunyana and ukuthwasa may correlate with a distinction between familial and sporadic cases of schizophrenia. Whether the positive connotations associated with ukuthwasa, as opposed to the more negative connotations associated with amafufunyana, hold any implications for the treatment or prognosis of schizophrenia remains to be clarified."

http://content.karger.com/ProdukteDB/produkte.asp?Doi=77579#AC

There is no mention of the living or working arrangements of those in this study. But the study was performed in South Africa. It is unlikely that these subjects had modern multi-room housing.

 

 

Versola-Russo, J.  (2006).Cultural and Demographic Factors of Schizophrenia.
   International Journal of Psychosocial Rehabilitation.  10 (2), 89-103 .

"Niehas et al. (2004) conducted a study in West Africa and found that individuals with a family history of either schizophrenia or other psychiatric disorders were more likely to receive the diagnosis of ukuthwasa (symptoms include social withdrawal, irritability, restlessness, and appearing to respond to auditory hallucinations) than amafufunyana (described as a hysterical condition characterized by people who speak in a strange muffled voice, cannot be understood, and have unpredictable behavior. This state is believed to be induced by sorcery that led to possession by multiple spirits that may then speak through the individual (‘speaking in tongues’). The authors assert that not all individuals with ukuthwasa and amafufunyana suffer from schizophrenia, but may be used as explanatory models in a subset of schizophrenia sufferers. It may be that families prefer the term amafufunyana, possibly due to fewer stigmas associated than a diagnosis of schizophrenia".

http://www.psychosocial.com/IJPR_10/Cultural_Demographic_Factors_of_Sz_Russo.html

Amok

Amok is defined as a sudden outbreak of violence, Some articles mention that the perpetrator often must be killed to stop the attack. There are cases detailed on-line but they do not show a clear conformation with the symptoms listed for this CBS.

If the person survives the episode they often have amnesia of the events during the episode and delusions of persecution.

Longhouses are used in parts of the range or locations where this disorder happens. See Latah and Jumping Frenchmen of Maine Syndrome below for the explanation and links to longhouses.

Sudden violent berserk attacks first appeared as Cabin Fever in the 1830's among mountain men, fur trappers. Two men confined in a tiny cabin, sometimes snowed in for weeks allow the situation to be created that will cause Subliminal Distraction to happen. When either man worked on something at arm's length they could concentrate to maintain focus on the activity. When they do that they slightly dissociate the things happening around them. We all do that every day. This allows peripheral vision to detect movement and attempt a vision reflex. When you are familiar with the situation and stimulus the startle or vision reflex no longer happens. But that does not turn the system off.

When too many threat movement detection incidents happen in a compact time frame a dissociative mental break will be created. If there is an ongoing dispute or the situation creates normal aggravations from close confinement, the constant subliminal perception of threat creates paranoia and over time shapes thought. That subliminal conflict builds until the mental break occurs and the paranoia and fear cause a violent reaction.

Sudden violence appears around the world in Culture Bound Syndromes. Sometimes it is adjunct to other symptoms and in some cases is is the main outcome. See iich'aa, and Going Postal.

An article by  George F. Rhoades, Jr., Ph.D.on the ISSD site lists the symptome of amok as:

 "...The syndrome has been defined as an episode of dissociation (Suryani & Jensen, 1993) and is often characterized by “a sudden rampage, usually including homicide, ending in exhaustion and amnesia” (Hatta, 1996)...."

Here we have several elements of our template for definition of a CBS, dissociation, sudden violence, amnesia.

Amok would have been first seen in the United States as "Cabin Fever" in the early 1800's. Then it was a sudden violent attack by one fur trapper on another while over-wintering in too-small cabins. Today amok is found around the world. Going Postal and school or workplace mass shootings follow the pattern for amok.

These paragraphs will be expanded...

 

Anfechtung 

 

Limited to Hutterites, a group of communal ownership colonies, the symptoms include feelings of having sinned, of religions unworthiness, withdrawal from social contacts, and thoughts of suicide.

There are three sub groups (Leuts) within the Hutterite sect and combined they have 383 Colonies in Canada and northern states in the US. Spring Prairie Colony contains 31 families on 3000 acres. They are moving into manufacturing from farming to financially survive.

The word is German and has a general meaning of temptation related to religious beliefs. There is no single word to translate the original meaning.

Hutterites believe that two Bible quotes command communal living. Although families have separate housing group dining halls are used. There are daily church services and longer services on Sundays.

Each colony has business operations to supply needs and perform income producing projects. Computers are only used by Colony managers to facilitate record keeping and the Internet is used to locate and acquire Colony needs.

There is a picture of a school room on the Spring Prairie site. Schooling stops at 15 or 16 and the ninth grade. That site mentions that only one Hutterite there has a four year college degree. Higher education is not sought because of the individual's wishes but done because of the will of the Colony. College degrees are sought because teachers are required to have certification by the state.

The Riverview Colony School site linked below has pictures of the Montessori method school room. There is no too-close side-by-side seating used. This means that school children are not exposed to classroom Subliminal Distraction beyond the ninth grade.

This syndrome is interesting because the Hutterites intermarry and have a limited genetic pool. Statements on their website say that most young people within a individual colony are cousins. Marriage prospects arise from visitation to other colonies.

There is a low incidence of Schizophrenia. I have just found this problem and my investigation is still being done. Understanding why members of this sect have episodes of Anfechtung adds to the understanding of mental illness.

Anfechtung Syndrome points to Accidental Subliminal Operant Conditioning operating to shape the episode from  the contemporaneous thought of victims. Paranoia and un-attributed fear evidenced in other cases are limited by the victim's life  experience.

Because of the low incidence of schizophrenia there are investigations of genetic connections for mental illness being done using Hutterites as subjects.

 

 

40 Mile Colony Montana       http://www.uwec.edu/Geography/Ivogeler/w188/articles/hutterites.htm

New Dale Colony Manitoba      http://www.uwec.edu/geography/Ivogeler/w188/manitoba/hutteri.htm

Blumengart Colony Manitoba http://www.uwec.edu/geography/Ivogeler/w188/manitoba/hutteri2.htm

Riverview Colony School    Uses Montessori method           http://sesd.sk.ca/grassroots/riverview/

Spring Prairie Colony                             http://www.in-forum.com/specials/awa/

Horizon School Division   http://www.horizon.ab.ca/virtual/hutcol/colhome.htm

Lomond Colony School   http://www.horizon.ab.ca/virtual/hutcol/colhome3.htm

Willow Creek School      http://www.willowcreek.prairiespirit.mb.ca/index.htm

Alberta Hutterite Colonies list and dates of founding only.  http://members.allstream.net/~blongway/hutter.htm

News articled Hartland Colony Montana              http://www.missoulian.com/specials/followh2o/h2o02.html

 

 

Low Prevalence of Psychoses Among the Hutterites, an Isolated Religious Community  American Journal of Psychiatry 157:1065-1070, July 2000

Vishwajit L. Nimgaonkar, D.Phil., M.R.C.Psych., T. Mary Fujiwara, , M.Sc., Mrinal Dutta, , Ph.D., Joel Wood, , B.S., Koren Gentry, , B.S., Selma Maendel, Kenneth Morgan, , Ph.D. and Joseph Eaton, , Ph.D.

"CONCLUSIONS: The prevalence of specific psychoses was reduced among the Hutterites, although neurotic disorders were more prevalent. These findings suggest some specificity, although possible artifacts such as ascertainment bias must be considered. Further research is needed to examine genetic and environmental factors that may contribute to reduced prevalence of specific psychoses among the Hutterites."

This is an example of research that is unaware of the "conflict of physiology" explored on this site.  This journal article used statistical data from insurance and census reports in Canada and the United States. 
 

American Journal of Psychiatry  http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/content/full/157/7/1065

(Hutterite colonies have a very low rate of schizophrenia.. See Cause of  Psychotic Mental Illness, and Schizophrenia pages.)

to be expanded....

 

Communal living arrangements are mentioned but not explained in this study.

Low incidence of Schizophrenia http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/content/full/157/7/1065

 

Anorexia Nervosa (This entry will be moved to a separate page as the size increases.)

An eating disease, Anorexia is not considered to be psychotic behavior. But refusing to eat to the point of death is just that. It is a narrowly focused installed belief system. Think of a hypnotic suggestion or operant conditioning taken to extreme.

It is said to be the most prevalent of the disorders of the DSM. It has the highest morbidity rate of any disorder. 

Volumes have been written about the media image of thinness in the West being a contributing factor but the writers have a problem jumping from a concern over weight control to the psychosis of Anorexia.

The argument against this etiology begins in the middle ages  when the first cases of anorexia were recorded. There was no American media and its drive to be thin. Anorexia appears in many cultures and victims espouse local ethnic reasons for the refusal to eat. Anorexic Chinese women complain of digestive problems as their reason for reduced food intake. Interestingly there are studies that found that women from the middle east did not have fewer symptoms of anorexia than women from the same ethnic background, Iranian, who lived in California, and were exposed to western media.

No one has stated a causative factor for this disorder.

When anorexia is viewed as a installed delusional belief system those differences in etiology disappear.

Each person believes they are reducing food intake for a reason that comes from their cultural experience.

But the actual cause of the delusional thinking is exposure from Subliminal Distraction.

For that explanation we must begin with an activity we know contains stimulus from Subliminal Distraction.

There is a report cited and referenced to political abuse of Falun Gong in China. Users of Qi Gong seem to become addicted to Qi Gong and won't or can't stop gathering others to exercise with them. The subliminal effect that causes addiction, unknown to the user, happens only when the exercise is performed in groups. This should have raised suspicion that the problem was vision driven.

Making the connection between the addiction noted for users of Qi Gong in China and the altered mental state that is Anorexia is difficult to comprehend for the average reader. This report from China establishes that there is something strange at work for users of Qi Gong.

The strange effects of both Qi Gong and Kundalini Yoga are well documented. There are reports of users being warned that the exercises will "mess with your mind." But those with that warning don't understand what causes the mental effects noted.

Kundalini Yoga and Qi Gong both create exposure to visual Subliminal Distraction. Some long term users exhibit a psychotic-like belief system in which they profess superhuman strength and supernatural powers. It is called "opening the third eye" in Qi Gong and the "Awakening of Kundalini" in Kundalini Yoga. In both cases it is actually a dissociative mental break, altered mental state, that is achieved slowly. It creates delusional beliefs and thought processing problems that resemble schizophrenia but do not cause the life altering effects of schizophrenia.

The difficult to explain facet is that the psychotic-like altered state is narrowly focused and seems to be limited to the belief system of the exercise. Anorexia is an altered state narrowly focused to include only beliefs that ones body form is inappropriate, regardless of the true physical condition. In other areas of daily life the person functions normally. There is no named psychotic mental disorder for this altered mental state in the DSM.

In Qi Gong and Kundalini Yoga the  altered mental state and belief system is created by the brain signals, caused by the subliminal detection of threat movement, acting as a stimulus for operant conditioning reinforcing the instructions of the exercise. Users are told that if they continue, to mastery of the exercise, they will reach enlightenment. This includes the ability to levitate through the will of your mind.

This is a unique situation. The detection of threat movement in peripheral vision is a trigger for the human vision startle reflex. The theory on this site is that the brain activity so triggered, occurring below thought, reason, and consciousness, meant to cause that reflex, has a profound effect on psychiatric outcomes. No such effect exists for audio Subliminal Distraction. Audio distraction is thought to have a fatiguing effect for knowledge workers.

For instance, Qi Gong users seeking health improvement are told not to think of a specific cure but instead think of general health improvement. When their subconscious mind understands the stimulus of threat movement detection as reinforcement of that thought they are reinforced to believe their health improves. The human body has recuperative powers if simply left alone. That may be the cause of actual improvement. It also might be a mind body connection for healing.

When you compare the belief systems of Kundalini Yoga to Anorexia there do not seem to be any common points. There aren't any. That is what is confusing when you use the grouping system of the DSM, The substance of the observed behavior does not connect the disorders for most CBS's. Grouping behaviors is dangerous when you do not known the cause. Without correct causation there is no way to determine where one "disorder" ends and another begins.

The connection is in who becomes  Anorexic and their activities while the disease develops and  progresses. (See BBC news story below.)

Those with Anorexia have activities that subject them to low levels of exposure to Subliminal Distraction.

For the small percent of the population with this disorder their mind made a connection for the stimulus we all have every day. They also experienced a level of exposure that exceeded their threshold of safety. Stress factors may have a role in lowering a person's threshold for serious exposure.

Anorexia is one of a long list of bizarre beliefs. The belief that your body is filled with crawling creatures is another psychotic symptom. With anorexia the victim can actually do something to try to change their body shape, refuse to eat.

 

What activity causes most exposure in the fourteen and older group of adolescents?

The primary activity is student. That connection is noted in study after study without understanding of the significance.

Too-close side-by-side seating in classrooms provides the basic situation for exposure from Subliminal Distraction if the other elements of the template for exposure are met.

Exposure is prevented in classrooms because in most situations everyone in the classroom does the same things at the same times and there are no students walking too-close beside a concentrating classmate.

The body growth spurt at puberty changes that. Bigger bodies are easier to detect when an arm or leg moves in the adjacent row of students.

The typical onset for Anorexia begins at about fourteen.

Again this is noted in study after study but without understanding of what that means.

Example:

http://www.healer.ch/ChakraRefEnglish.pdf

There are articles which decry the increase of this disorder on college campuses.

An article in the Tuscaloosa News recently recounted the death of a graduate who entered college with prior history of the disorder. The disorder worsened during college.

There are comments on sites for Qi Gong treatments that Anorexia worsens when Qi Gong is used while the eating disorder symptoms are present.

The exposure and stimulation is the same in all these cases.  

Anorexia nervosa in Singapore: An eight-year retrospective study

H Y Lee, E L Lee, P Pathy, Y H Chan

"Depression was the most common co-morbid condition affecting 25.4 percent of the sample."

"Prevalence rates for anorexia nervosa in Japan range from 0.025% to 0.030%, while community studies in China have found the prevalence to be
0.01%. The prevalence for anorexia nervosa in western countries was found to be between 0.2% to 0.9%."

http://www.sma.org.sg/smj/4606/4606a1.pdf

Depression can be shown to be a major outcome of exposure to Subliminal Distraction. Ninety-three of one-hundred-fifteen women were students.  Too-close side-by-side seating in classrooms provides one of the elements of the template for exposure. The remainder could be considered knowledge workers or high-tech factory workers.

Subliminal Distraction is not considered on factory work floors. But there are scattered instances of jumping diseases briefly mentioned in reports.

 

 

Anorexia Following Termination Of Pregnancy And Laproscopic Sterilization  Ajay Velayudhan, T.M. Raghu, B. Sudarshan & Prabha S. Chandra -  Indian Journal of Psychiatry, 2001, 43 (1), 67-69


"Anorexia Nervosa developing in the postpartum period and in women with young children has implications for the well being of the mother and the child. In our case, the patient developed anorectic symptoms during her third abortion and the presence of eating disorder had significant effects on the health of her children and on childrearing.
Though our patient had depression, it reached significant severity only for a period of three months. Hence, the depression could not completely account for the anorexia. The anorectic symptoms were also found to be out of proportion to the severity of depression. Our case is similar to the only other case reported in literature of anorexia following a termination of pregnancy (Thomas and Brian,1982)."


"She started feeling progressively weak and was completely bedridden for eleven months prior to her psychiatric consultation. She was unable to perform any of her daily chores and her social and occupational functioning was severely impaired."

 

http://www.ijponline.org/Jan/indIJPJanAnorexia.html

 

___________

 

BBC news story- eating disorders --Friday, 31 May, 2002, 23:17 GMT 00:17 UK
Television link to eating disorders
 

"Dr Anne Becker and colleagues from Harvard Medical School found that levels of poor body image and incidents of eating disorders among girls have increased since they were first exposed to television. ...The doctors interviewed and tested two sets of Fijian schoolgirls within a few weeks of the introduction of television to the area of Nadroga in 1995 and then again in 1998. ...The study showed that girls living in houses with a television set were three times more likely to show symptoms of eating disorders."

The photo used for this article was not from Fiji but it showed children sitting watching TV in a group, sitting in each other's peripheral vision. We know from the case of the psychotic episodes that happened with EST that exposure to Subliminal Distraction does happen when groups participate in an activity requiring mental investment and participants can detect movement in their peripheral vision.

The subject of the TV program does not cause the problem but stimulation in peripheral vision while watching the material does. It is Subliminal Accidental Operant Conditioning.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/2018900.stm

Is Anorexia Nervosa a Culture-Bound Syndrome?

Elizabeth J. McDonald University of San Diego Journal of Psychological Inquiry
Volume 9, Number 2, Fall 2004

Anorexia actually has its beginning in the middle ages when the feminine ideal body shape was depicted by Renoir's paintings of full figured nudes. Descriptions connected it to sadness and anxiety.  Anorexia nervosa was coined in the 1870's.

 

 

 

Arctic Hysteria  Pibloktoq, Piblokto

Seizure including loss of consciousness, fleeing, wandering, tearing off clothes and rolling in snow, speaking in tongues and echoing or repeating other's words.

The effected group is the Eskimo of the Arctic.

Note: Repeating the last words of others present in this syndrome  is also seen in Jumping Frenchmen of Maine Disease. It is also a behavior usually only seen in catatonic Schizophrenia.

Year round close confinement in small living spaces would produce Subliminal Distraction exposure. (See Amok and jumping diseases.)

 

 

Ataque de nervios

The phrase ataque de Nervios, attack of nerves, is a Spanish idiom. There are so many references it is difficult to separate all of them from the Culture Bound Syndrome.

The phrase is so well known that people often present with the self diagnosis that they have had an "ataque de nervios." The 'wide spread belief' may include simple cases of grief and normal ethnic reaction to stressful events. These have no involvement with a mental break.  But the mention of dissociation in the description points to the conflict of physiology.

One of the problems is to find observations or details that would associate this CBS with the conflict of physiology. There is little specific information to link it to Subliminal Distraction but I suspect some of the events that are diagnosed as ataque de nervios should be included in that grouping.

Symptoms include, uncontrolled shouting, crying, trembling, dissociative events or seizures, and fainting. Onset is associated with a stressful family event.

 

Am J Psychiatry 159:1603-1605, September 2002

Dissociation, Childhood Trauma, and Ataque De NerviosAmong Puerto Rican Psychiatric Outpatients -- Roberto Lewis-Fernández, M.D., Pedro Garrido-Castillo, Ph.D., Mari Carmen Bennasar, Psy.D., Elsie M. Parrilla, LICSW, Amaro J. Laria, Ph.D., Guoguang Ma, M.S., and Eva Petkova, Ph.D.
 

"OBJECTIVE: This study examined the relationships of dissociation and childhood trauma with ataque de nervios".

 

http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/content/full/159/9/1603

 

Psychiatric Times

Examining Anger in 'Culture-Bound' Syndromes by Sandra L. Somers Psychiatric Times  January 1998  Vol. XV   Issue 1

"..described by Michael W. Smith, M.D., assistant professor of psychiatry at UCLA and a principal investigator of the Research Center on the Psychobiology of Ethnicity.

"Ataque de nervios includes a dissociative episode," he said, "one in which patients seem to move out of themselves. Symptoms include palpitations, tight chest, trembling, shortness of breath, problems with memory and striking out at people-which frequently gets the attention of police or forensics." Falling down and convulsing often follow, which can create difficulty in learning whether epilepsy or a psychiatric condition is involved."..."

http://www.psychiatrictimes.com/p980145.html



 

Awakening of Kundalini

Acolytes of Kundalini Yoga seek an event they call the Awakening of Kundalini. It is not considered a Culture Bound Syndrome. This is because it is treated as a religious event and belief system.  Many sites around the world warn of serious negative mental outcomes from this pursuit of enlightenment.

There is dispute among factions as to the meaning of the awakening. Some claim it is contact with the Goddess Kundalini and other deny this version and say it is a state of higher awareness caused by releasing "Universal Life Energy," which is located at the base of human spines. 

It is included here because the method to engage the awakening is the same as the method to achieve health improvements in Qi Gong. In both exercises concentration during eyes-open meditation creates the mental investment to allow the subliminal detection of threat movement. Movement of other participants is detected to create subliminal stimulation of the subconscious during the session. This is the same set of elements that were discovered to cause mental breaks in knowledge workers in the 1960's

When a threshold of exposure is reached, different for each person, a dissociative/psychotic mental break happens. In Qi Gong it is recognized as such but in Kundalini Yoga it is accepted as a desired outcome.

Long term Kundalini Yoga users exhibit a severely altered psychotic mental state. They believe they can levitate, dematerialize, become invisible, walk through solid objects without harm, and that they possess superhuman or supernatural powers. You can read letters from those experiencing this phenomenon on-line.

Victims with these mental states function normally within their community of common belief set and are revered as enlightened. This is different from the complete recovery usually seen in CBS's. The difference in the amount of exposure from the two exercises accounts for the outcomes. The low level but persistent exposure causes that.

The disorganized thinking, hearing voices (sounds of  running water, birds chirping, clicks and pops)  and bizarre beliefs that contradict reality are similar to Schizophrenia.

Kundalini Yoga VPN 

 

Anxiety and Panic Attacks (there is a second panic attacks entry below about my own experience.)

Many CBS's include anxiety in their description of symptoms. One paper given as an introductory speech to a convention of the American Psychiatric Association, cited that anxiety and panic co-occur in mental disorders in a frequency that is too high for random chance. The speaker  made the observation but had no thought as to why this is so. Symptoms of a Kundalini Awakening also include fear and trembling. One mass shooter, Mark Barton Atlanta Day Trader shooter, left notes that describe un-attributed fear. That is, intense, unbearable fear but with no specific object of that fear. This fear also appeared in the Mary Shotwell Little disappearance, Atlanta 1965.

These examples of perceived but un-attributed fear happen to people who by the description of the events have been exposed to Subliminal Distraction.

This does not suggest that anxiety and panic attacks should be considered Culture Bound Syndromes. Rather it points to a continuum of experience which runs through the CBS's. Panic is experienced by victims and recorded by observers as agitation, being keyed up, in increasing levels, which include the suggestion that Oriental Nightmare Death is a severe panic attack that causes heart attacks. 

(I am still working on this aspect and will add material here ....)The Little Disappearance page    Mark Barton Day Trader Shooting

As you read through this list note the number of times anxiety appears in the list of symptoms.

Adobe file, a reprint of Journal Article http://www.chmeds.ac.nz/research/chds/publications/2003/panic.pdf

The symptoms of Anxiety and Panic Attacks are often included in the symptoms of Culture Bound Syndromes. Sites on Panic Attacks say that the onset is in late teen years or early adulthood. The reason given is often stress in dealing with life situations and changes. But that time period for normal onset is also the time period  for the onset of Schizophrenia. (See the Schizophrenia entry below or link to the Cause of Schizophrenia VPN site page.)

 

 

 

Bangungut

 

I have not found articles on this syndrome yet but this PubMed paper  suggests that the phenomenon is genetic and occurs in Southease Asian groups.

"A case-control study in Ban Vinai revealed associations between sudden death in sleep and membership in the Green-Hmong subgroup, a family history of sudden death, and previous non-fatal sleep disturbances."

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=3618851&dopt=Abstract

 

 

 

Spiritual Death

This article has case histories of sudden death other that from Southeast Asia.

http://www.mind-body.info/Contents/IMAGINATION/DEATH/SPIRITUAL/SUDS/Spiritual.html

 

Baridi

The syndrome is confined to three villages in southern Tanzania. One village has a population of about 5,000 and many have primary schooling. (See Brain Fog below.)

There is a progressive feeling of tiredness and emotional detachment that causes physical, mental, and social decline. An article from the Transcultural Journal of Nursing has detailed cultural information.

There is no evidence of sudden dissociative episodes, no sudden event that has a recovery with no treatment. The quote below does reference "madness." as being a long term outcome. Deformation of joints in advanced cases tends toward a virus or other vector as one possible cause of the syndrome. There is the possibility that many complaints are combined and blamed on Baridi. The symptoms other than the joint deformation might be low levels of depression caused by exposure to Subliminal Distraction. Further examination of the living conditions, single-room housing, and activities of tribal members might find a source of Subliminal Distraction. Low levels of exposure have been shown to cause depression, Belgian Polar Expedition, Astronauts & Insanity site page. See Qi Gong and Kundalini Yoga pages for long term outcomes.

The description given in this article includes the concept that the actions of others cause illness.

"The aim of respect was to maintain unity within the extended family and strengthen the welfare of an individual, and the villagers believed that those who did not how respect to their family members started to suffer from baridi sooner or later." 

"While the illness was progressing, drowsiness and fatigue became more visible so that “a patient is unable to work and sleeps when it is not time to sleep.” In the course of years, the symptoms the patient suffered got worse little by little, because coldness penetrated deeper into the body systems. Joints in particular were affected, and the informants told that patients got changes in their joints resembling rheumatism or poliomyelitis. On the other hand, baridi could affect a patient’s mental health causing “madness.” Sexual impotence was also a typical feature of the syndrome. Some informants stated that physical deformations, measles, and poliomyelitis were traditionally believed to be caused by baridi. When the first AIDS patients were seen in the village, people thought that they were ill due to baridi. Neither supernatural forces, such as evil spirits and witchcraft, nor people outside the family could be a cause of baridi." Journal of Transcultural Nursing, Vol. 16 No. 1, January 2005 15-22

The full text of the linked article is now available on line, see links below.

 

http://tcn.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/16/1/15


Brain Fag / Fog

The syndrome is believed to effect only male college or high school students in West Africa.

Symptoms include, dizziness, headaches, sleep disturbances, anxiety symptoms, problems concentrating, and physical symptoms such as crawling sensations on the skin, and vomiting.

Victims attribute the problem to witchcraft.

http://www.health24.com/mind/Culturebound_syndromes/1284-1304,13256.asp

 

'Brain Fag' Symptoms in Apprentices in Nigeria
Olufemi Morakinyoa, Karl Peltzerb

Department of Mental Health, College of Health Sciences, Olufemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria;
Health Behaviour Research Unit, University of the North, Sovenga, South Africa


 

"The 'brain fag' syndrome, which was first reported from West Africa in 1960 among students, has been shown to occur very widely in African students in western educational systems south of the Sahara....This study investigated the distribution of its symptoms in a group of apprentices ...who (in contrast) were training under an indigenous form of education - the African apprenticeship system...A relationship between proficiency in English, but not socioeconomic status, with brain fag symptoms was found. In the case of the Nigerian apprentices investigated here, brain fag symptoms were not significantly associated with the method of training learning (which is dependent mainly on verbal instructions in the vernacular from their bosses, and vicarious learning by observing the boss at work). "

It is my guess that 'traditional western education systems' means classroom instruction.

http://content.karger.com/ProdukteDB/produkte.asp?Aktion=ShowPDF&ProduktNr=224276&Ausgabe=228945&ArtikelNr=68594&filename=68594.pdf

 

 



Boufée Deliriante

This syndrome is characterized by sudden outbursts, confusion, hallucinations, paranoid ideation. The posting in the Glossary of Cultural Bound Syndromes (UCSD) compares it to the DSM-IV brief psychotic disorder.

Does this sound familiar? Differences in observations and observations which are clouded by cultural beliefs of the examiner can account for the miss matching of symptoms. Still, it has that all too familiar ring of Subliminal Peripheral Vision Psychosis. There is no information available to link this syndrome to the conflict of physiology except the description.

There is no information in available literature to determine the contemporaneous activities of victims.

 

Cabin Fever

Today Cabin Fever refers to Seasonal Affective Disorder. But in the Rocky Mountains during the fur trapping period, early 1800's, it had another meaning. It  referred to violent episodes when one cabin-mate attempted to kill the other. (Amok, Going Postal, Iich'aa)

Beaver, fox, mink, or other animals have the desired pelt only during winter. Cabins dugouts, or other small permanent shelters were used and traps were set out in arcs across the land then visited to harvest animals.. Extreme heavy snow storms would prevent travel to those trap lines for weeks. Many trappers preferred to live alone with the attendant risks rather than live with a cabin-mate that might go berserk and try to kill them.

Normal friction between men confined in close quarters would have been magnified by the subliminal detection of movement when one person performed close hand work while another person was active nearby.

As far as I can determine this site is the only place on the Internet where this information is discussed. There is a book, Bold Endeavors, about the problems encountered on scientific expeditions. But the author does not mention the Conflict of Physiology. NASA apparently counsels astronauts about this but again there is no mention of prior close confinement problems in any material I can access. Astronauts & Insanity 

I am searching for the books I remember reading in the 1950's. Jim Bridger is one of the names I can recall. If you know the title of those books email Researcher.

 

 

Couvade

Sympathetic pregnancy and somatic complaints in spouses of near term women. The syndrome is argued to be imaginary. Investigations and studies have been done around the world.

 

Couvade syndrome: male counterpart to pregnancy. Klein H
University of Texas Medical Branch, Galvest Int J Psychiatry Med, 21: 1, 1991, 57-69
 

"Onset is usually during the third gestational month with a secondary rise in the late third trimester. Symptoms generally resolve with childbirth. Couvade has been seen as an expression of somatized anxiety, pseudo-sibling rivalry, identification with the fetus, ambivalence about fatherhood, a statement of paternity, or parturition envy. It is likely that the dynamics of couvade may vary between individuals and may be multidetermined."

http://www.childbirth.org/articles/couvade.html

Good History Article  http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/C/CO/COUVADE.htm

The question relative to the phenomenon on this site is, what is the correlation for the occupations of male victims and exposure to Subliminal Distraction. The jumping diseases show hyper-suggestibility. Is the sympathetic experience of the symptoms of pregnancy caused by suggestibility?

 

The HIstory Channel UK

"Couvade, imitation by the father of many of the concomitants of childbirth, at the time of his wife's parturition. ... One explanation for this custom is that the father and mother of a newborn both have to be cautious and avoid foods and activities that might, through supernatural means, bring harm to themselves or the child . ...The practice has been noted since antiquity, in such widely dispersed places as Africa, China, Japan, India, among native populations of North and South America, and among the Basques of France and Spain."

http://www.thehistorychannel.co.uk/site/search/search.php?word=COUVADE&enc=12027

 

Couvade Syndrome Equivalent? Kumar Budur, Maju Mathews, and Manu Mathew Psychosomatics 46:71-72, February 2005


"This is a very unusual presentation in that the symptoms were similar, but they occurred in a twin sister rather than the spouse."

http://psy.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/content/full/46/1/71

 

CVS Cyclical Vomiting Syndrome

This is a wide-spread syndrome. It would not meet a definition of CBS. But it might be a somatic response to Subliminal Distraction. I have emails out to the head of the support group soliciting information on details of the victims.

This entry may be a problem unrelated to Subliminal Distraction. Usually young children cannot be victims of Subliminal Distraction. But personality traits that cause "private play" might create enough dissociation to engage the conflict of physiology.

 

Falling Out

The person feels dizzy then falls and is paralyzed although they can hear and understand things happening around them. There is no mention of panic or dissociation in the few accounts of this syndrome.

 

 

Ghost Sickness ( iich'aa ?) Some sites have these confused.

Ghost Sickness is believed to be associated with fear and superstition surrounding death and the deceased. There are feelings of danger, fear, hallucinations,  anxiety, loss of consciousness, nightmares, fainting, dizziness, confusion, and sensations of suffocation.

Although my investigation is limited I have found references to the same syndrome in other native cultures.

The symptoms in the paragraph above parallels the symptoms of a dissociative mental break. When the event happened the victim would associate the sensations with their beliefs and superstitions concerning death.

One site explains that the Navaho believe they have experienced a visitation from a "chindi" when they hear the sound a tree falling, a bank of earth  falling down,  someone moving through dry leaves, or voices speaking in Navaho, when those things are not there. A chindi is the spirit of the dead. That spirit or wind is placed in the body at birth and leaves at death. Those aspects of a person that represent good are accepted into an afterlife. Evil is not accepted in the afterlife and that remnant evil force is a chindi.

Upon having the experience they revisit the site to find some sign of spirit visitation. Animal tracks in the location of the experience are evidence that the chindi took animal form.

Sounds like these are heard upon the onset of the Awakening of Kundalini. ICU Psychosis produces hearing voices within five days of exposure in a hospital intensive care unit. If you read our family case sounds of police cars, choirs singing, and mumbling angry voices were produced in the onset of Connie's episode. Personal Experiences

Note that the Navaho experience is part of the religious belief system. It reinforces the religious beliefs through physical experiences and mental events.

Examples of Navajo hogans at Spider Rock Campground visitors center.

http://elmerfudd.us/dp/navajo/hogans.htm

Traditional Navajo hogans are single-room living spaces. http://waltonfeed.com/peoples/navajo/hogan.html

 

 

 .....  To be continued

 

Grisi siknis

Rupert Widdicombe Wednesday December 17, 2003  Guardian

"A team of doctors, psychiatrists, and anthropologists have reached a remote Miskito community in the jungles of northern Nicaragua where 60 people are suffering from a mysterious "collective madness". In all cases, the patients have the same symptoms: long periods of coma-like unconsciousness, interrupted by sudden bouts of frenzied behaviour. During the attacks, sufferers attempt to flee their communities with their eyes closed, seizing any weapon they can find with which they appear to try to defend themselves against invisible attackers. According to local press reports, they have extraordinary strength and often four people are required to restrain them.

The last major outbreak of grisi siknis began in 1910 and affected dozens of Miskito communities throughout the region for 20 years.

Professor Phil Dennis, an anthropologist at Texas Tech University who spent two years studying the phenomenon in the late 1970s. ...  witnessed four attacks during his research and said the patients were "clearly in another state of reality"...."

I edited the article and quote severely. At this point the syndrome appears, then cause mass hysteria. The reference to altered mental states, periods of coma, and seizing any weapon to defend themselves from imaginary attackers points to dissociative/psychotic episode and hallucinations.

I do not have information on an activites or living arrangements that would cause exposure to Subliminal Distraction yet.

 

 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,4821049-103681,00.html

The Walrus Magazine

Though limited this article is an account of several victims interviewed in Nicaragua. Information about grisi siknis is shaded by the writer's point of view. Some accent the mass hysteria aspect of the syndrome while others mention that attacks of grisi siknis resemble Amok. Victims must be tied up to prevent them running into the forest. The name is the Miskitu Indian phonetic spelling of "crazy sickness."

http://www.walrusmagazine.com/print/anthropology-nicaraguas-crazy-sickness/

 

 

Hafirgan

A single reference cites the disorder. All other Internet accounts are copies of that abstract. The full text is listed as unavailable.

Hafirgan: is it a culture bound syndrome or a somatic manifest of anxiety?

"According to 15 patients who had experienced hafirgan, the most common symptoms are palpitations in abdominal area (15 patients), fatigue (10 patients), hypersomnia (5 patients), loss of appetite (4 patients) feeling of weakness on knee (3 patients), palpitations of heart (2 patients), difficulty in taking breath (1 patient). 10 of 15 patients having hafirgan reported that they had experienced hafirgan after a fearful event. Moreover, 8 of 15 patients received treatment by local traditional healers. In local traditional treatment of hafirgan, patients are pressed strongly on the center of their abdomen when they are hungry for three consecutive days, three times for each trial. Hafirgan can not be fully explained within the diagnostic classification system of DSM-IV and should be regarded as a culture-bound syndrome. In the paper, we define a clinical condition called “hafirgan” which is regarded as having the features of a culture bound psychiatric syndrome."

http://bioline.utsc.utoronto.ca/archive/00000919/
 

 

Hsieh-ping

There is little available on this syndrome. The same statement appears in most listings. They say that it is a trance like state in which the person believes they are possessed by the spirit of an ancestor. Some entries say that the ancestor then attempts to talk to others present.

Spirit possession is hearing voices. Acting out the delusion that your are spirit possessed would indicate long term exposure if the agent to cause the mental event is Subliminal Distraction. There is no information available on the activities of the effected person that would allow that conclusion.

No other information available after several searches.

 

Hwa-byung - Fire Illness Korea Ul-hwa-byeong in South Korea


Symptoms are a heavy feeling in the chest, sleep problems, hot or cold flashes, and blurred vision. Also seen are anxiety, depression, OCD, anorexia,

paranoia, fear, attacking - destroying  objects, forgetfulness, and irritability..

Another source lists:

Pain and fear that an upper abdominal mass will cause death. Symptoms also include insomnia, panic, fear of impending death, tiredness, and loss of appetite.

There is no information on the activities of group effected that would allow speculation on the actual cause. The belief is that imbalances caused by anger are the cause. Like Amok and the jumping diseases the location of rural China suggests the living arrangements might supply opportunities for Exposure to SD.

This sounds like a somatic complaint that is perceived ethnically. This is another illness that may not be a CBS. But the many physio-Kundalini symptoms will keep it under consideration. Note paranoia and fear are outcomes of exposure to SD.

Psychiatric Times

Examining Anger in 'Culture-Bound' Syndromes by Sandra L. Somers Psychiatric Times  January 1998  Vol. XV   Issue 1

"Hwa-byung is more frequently found in females in their 40s or 50s, less-educated people, those of lower socioeconomic status and those from rural areas. On mental examination, hwa-byung patients characteristically reveal a polite attitude, numerous somatic complaints and tears."

"Hwa-byung is frequently found in middle-aged women of low social class, and in a combined form of depression, anxiety and various somatic symptoms. Physical symptoms include headache, dizziness, weakness/fatigue, palpitation, blurred vision, stifling/oppression, sexual dysfunction, insomnia, anorexia, indigestion, weight loss, flushed feeling, mass in the throat or epigastrium, heat sensation, intolerance to heat, multiple pains, sighing, dry mouth and a sensation of pushing-up in the chest. The results suggest also that the psychological symptoms of hwa-byung are a pervasive depressive mood, regret or guilt, anxiety, anger, destructive impulses, "weak and sensitive mind," obsession-compulsion, irritability, paranoid feelings, and hypochondriasis."

http://www.psychiatrictimes.com/p980145.html

 

PubMed abstract

"In the three cases reported, the patients also identified an epigastric mass that was not present on physical examination. Symptoms were accompanied by a fear of impending death that was not easily dispelled by medical reassurance."

Fixed beliefs that are impossible, including those of somatic complaints, might be evidence of Subliminal Distraction. In Qi Gong and Kundalini the fixed beliefs are that the person has supernatural or superhuman powers, Accidental Operant Conditioning does not install beliefs out of thin air. The installed beliefs are generated from each person's activities, thoughts, fears, and cultural belief set.

Looking at the activities of victims to determine exposure to SD would confirm the connection.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=6847969&dopt=Abstract

 

Icelandic Disease

Thought to be associated with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome in horses, the sex and location of victims plus some references to seasonal positioning suggests that some instances attributed to viral infections might be SVPV at low exposure. If all cases are caused by a virus this is not a CBS.

This first quote and link are on the Kundalini Yoga Psychotic Mental Break page because of the reference in the quote to physio-Kuncalini complex.


(Quote,  copy /paste, spelling is as copied) highlighting for emphasis

"Icelandic disease (Roueche, 1965) is probably of virus nature, has an acute onset characterized by pains in the neck and back, paresthesias and hyperesthesias (extremes of skin sensitivity), muscle weakness (as in polio), paresis, nervousness, insomnia, loss of memory, and terrifying dreams. Those struck are usually persons in their twenties and thirties. It is never fatal. Some of the cases show pain in the arms and back and legs, as well as headaches. There may also be delirium during the day, sensations of imbalance, and strange feelings in the legs. Other reported tingling and sweating in the hands and feet, ringing in the ears, and confusion. All these symptoms may be noted in our physio-kundalini complex cases."

 "The victims are more often women than men, and the epidemics tend to strike members of isolated or closed communities. Occasionally the emotional overlay of tension, anxiety, and depression are quite marked. The disorder has a prolonged and relapsing course."

How do viruses reach remote closed communities? Usually viral complaints such as the common cold and stomach viruses do not appear in remote snowed in areas until there is communication with the outside world in the spring. Bird virus is an exception but birds normally migrate during winter.


http://www.skaggs-island.org/humanistic/sannella/appendices.html

New information has different associations for Icelandic Disease.

"A human illness characterized by prolonged, debilitating fatigue and cognitive complaints, was called at first "Icelandic disease"(1948), "post-polio syndrome" or "myalgic encephalomyelitis", and has been anecdotically related to similar syndromes in animals. It is nowadays known as "Chronic Fatigue Syndrome" (CFS) or "Chronic Fatigue and Immune Dysfunction Syndrome" (CFIDS), with many papers about it being published every year in journals of human medicine...

Its chief symptom, fatigue, can be combined with many others, such as headache, fever, sore throats, lack of concentration, failing short-term memory, muscle and joint pains, insomnia, increased allergic reactions ...

Recent magnetic resonance studies, showing specific damage of certain areas of the brain, have documented the really organic nature of the disease...

COMPARATIVE IMMUNOLOGY, MICROBIOLOGY & INFECTIOUS DISEASES (2000) Volume 23 n.4
 

UseNet Post Quote spelling as copied.

 

Veterinary Surgeon explains equestrian virus. http://listserv.nodak.edu/cgi-bin/wa.exe?A2=ind0005A&L=co-cure&P=R1662

Biomechanics and Movement Science listserver Chronic Fatigue Syndrome - 2nd to AIDS...Herman J. Woltring, Sat, 30 Mar 91 22:36:00
 

 "A small amount of physical activity or emotional stress is often sufficient to produce profound and long-lasting fatigue (...) that is not relieved by rest or a good night's sleep....Furthermore, various neurological (encephalitic) symptoms occur commonly, especially lack of concentration, loss of memory, and perceptional disturbances."

"It seems that ME/CFS cannot be conclusively diagnosed, and that only by eliminating other, better diagnosable diseases, ME/CFS remains as the only possible alternative."

http://isb.ri.ccf.org/biomch-l/archives/biomch-l-1991-03/00031.html

It is possible for someone physically ill and confined in bed to be exposed to Subliminal Distraction. See ICU Psychosis (VPN site page).

Dual diagnosis happens when Downs Syndrome and mental illness co-occur. Drug, alcohol, or other substance abuse combined with mental illness is also called Dual Diagnosis. Anyone can be subjected to exposure from Subliminal Distraction except the fully blind.

The conflict of physiology and Subliminal Distraction are driven through Subliminal Peripheral Vision. Loss of central sight with full capabilities in peripheral vision is called blind sight. Those with such partial sight conditions can be exposed and have symptoms of mental illness and panic attacks.

An incident aboard the Belgian Polar Expedition of 1889/99 demonstrated that this phenomenon could produce somatic and psychiatric symptoms. Eighteen otherwise normal sailors and scientists began to go insane when trapped in the small ship for months. One man became a deaf mute while another hid in small spaces of the ship to sleep believing the others were plotting to kill him. Astronauts & Insanity (VPN site page).

The possibilities here are:

 

 

 

Iich'aa

Navaho people were hunter gathers until the introduction of sheep, goats, and horses by the Spanish. They adopted a herding and farming life style. They lived in earth covered shelters in winter and in hogans constructed from brush in hot weather. These are all single-room dwellings.


The work required to produce useful things from sheep and goats would require using the template that would create exposure to Subliminal Distraction if there were other tribe members moving near the concentrating crafts person.


For instance grinding corn using a mano and matate could be group work. If the group members interacted with each other while grinding then Subliminal Distraction will not happen. But if anyone concentrates or daydreams while grinding they can subliminally detect others moving near them.


Using a loom to weave wool into fabric for clothing, or the hand weaving of blankets require concentration to execute  the pattern of the fabric. Bead work or sewing requires concentration for some. Others seem to be able to perform repetitive work with out mental investment in that effort. The same reasoning would apply to workers in metal, silver or turquoise.

The Glossary of Culture Bound Syndromes posted through UCSD compares iich'aa to amok, from Malaysia. That involves sudden attacks on others.

To be continued .....
 

Imu

One reference found. Syndrome of culturally learned response dissociation associated with startle. It happens among the Ainu of Japan.

Ainu means human. They live by hunting, fishing, farming and by selling crafts to tourists.

General information article. http://www.suite101.com/print_article.cfm/3665/22057

Nova site general history archeology. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/hokkaido/ainu.html

___________________________-

"Their habitations are reed-thatched huts, the largest 20 ft. square, without partitions and having a fireplace in the centre."

http://www.japan-101.com/culture/culture_ainu.htm

Photo Gallery Ainu performing craft work. http://phototravels.net/japan/photo-gallery/ainu-people.html

 

 

Jumping Frenchmen of Maine, Maine Syndrome, Latah, Myiachit

Latah is thought to be a CBS of Malaysia   (Latah has a separate entry below)

.
The Merk Source and Dorman's Medical Dictionary (linked below) mentions that some of the events occurring and associated with these CBS's suggest Operant Conditioning rather than Culture Bound Syndrome. That is, there is often suggestibility even to perform dangerous, harmful activities. This site argues that the cause of the altered mental state is actually Subliminal Accidental Operant Conditioning. Consciousness is bombarded by the internal brain signals intended to effect a peripheral vision reflex. Each culture experiences this differently. Each person has unique fears, concerns, and contemporaneous activity. Accidental Operant Conditioning acts to shape those belief sets and thoughts raising them to psychotic levels. The Everquest Connection page has that explanation and relates it to MMORPG play.


About 1880 New York Neurologist, George Beard, visited Moosehead Lake in northern Maine to investigate stories of a condition similar to Latah in non-Malay populations. He would have never heard of Latah or of SPVP. Remember that the conflict of physiology explored on this site was discovered in the 1950's/60's. He interviewed about 50 people including 14 victims in four families. He concluded the phenomenon struck mostly men, lumberjacks of French Canadian descent. There is no information available on what other ethnic populations might have been there working in the area. (Even today some occupations are common of certain ethnic populations. It may have been random chance that the major population of lumberjacks were French Canadian. The men may have preferred to live in Lumber Camps that had a majority population of their ethnic group.)

Eventually the problem was found in other places in Canada. Subsequent investigations established that the problem was connected to becoming a lumberjack.


Using information about SPVP one might conclude that the high prevalence of cases in four families (14) may have been because of personal habits of the four families causing additional exposure to stimulation in Subliminal Peripheral Vision or that the ability to startle easily was present as an inherited factor. (An inherited ability or sensitivity to movement in peripheral vision may be the causative factor to establish why 'mental illness runs in families.') Cause of Psychotic Mental Illness.


Economy usually required that these men live in close quarters in bunk house buildings rather than individual houses or rooms such as modern apartments. Travel to and from remote areas for each day's work would have been impracticable.

The fact that the disorder was discovered at two different locations, Quebec and Maine,   in different time periods suggests that something about the interior design of bunkhouses placed the men in a position where others would walk beside them as they performed knowledge  or craft work. Either type activity would put them into a mental state of concentration to engage the phenomenon.

This is obvious in the design of longhouses in Malaysia but I doubt there is readily available information about bunkhouses in the 1880's.

For a period these Jumper cases were thought to be associated with Tourette Syndrome. But as noted in the cited article Tourette does not include hyper-startle.


Same link as previous paragraph. http://www.cpa-apc.org/Publications/Archives/CJP/2000/June/InReview5.asp 

Paul Bunyan Museum has pictures 1890's bunkhouse.     http://www.paulbunyancamp.org/cook.htm

Note the grinding wheel in the last picture on the Paul Bunyan Museum page. Grinding your axe while others walked around you could cause exposure to Subliminal Distraction. That alone would not cause psychiatric symptoms. It would add to exposure. If you bargained with others to grind several axes  it could be significant exposure.

 

 

Myiachit is a jumping disease of Siberia. I have little information except that the symptoms are similar to other jumping diseases. Also known as amurakh, irkunii, ikota, olan.
 


 



Latah and Longhouses


Travel pictures on-line show longhouses are used in remote areas. This is the traditional housing in some south pacific areas. In some societies men live in a communal house or there is a house where they spend much of their time. Longhouses typically  have an open communal living space running through the center  and work areas on the partially enclosed porches running the length of the house. In some of the pictures women are shown near an entrance door using the pool of light to for "craft work."


In the Anasazi case on the Chaco Canyon  page we know that workers were placed close together because they sat under shade provided for them. Here an individual worker might pick a doorway that has heavy traffic in and out. . If they did work beside a heavily traveled door and sat for several days they would have exposure to SPVP.


Latah has switched from men to women and only in remote areas. This reflects the changing employment picture. Men now work for cash and women are left at home to perform household chores or work from the home. Women now have the exposure men once had. The longhouse is used in remote areas. Modern apartments and houses are in the cities.
These picture links may not be up long.


Browse the site for pictures of longhouses and workers sitting beside doorways. http://www.galenfrysinger.com/iban_longhouse.htm



These three pictures are in the same gallery. Longhouse interior http://www.borneotravel.com/gallery/gallery_people_11.html


You can link to the thumbnails for all of them. Basket weaving in a longhouse http://www.borneotravel.com/gallery/gallery_people_05.html


Click the Gallery link at the bottom of the page. Exterior view of longhouse http://www.borneotravel.com/gallery/gallery_people_09.html



Black and White photo but shows much better resolution than previous site. http://www.trekearth.com/gallery/Asia/Malaysia/photo44524.htm

Gallery of shots from same site shows seating position beside door. http://www.trekearth.com/gallery/Asia/Malaysia/East/Sarawak/Batang_Ai/ 


The purpose of these links is to illustrate the situation for persons not familiar with the longhouse.

 

 

Karoshi (Not a CBS)

Reported as death or "nervous breakdown" from over work. Japan compensates worker's families when the cause of death is heart attack or stroke. But work related suicides account for five percent of all suicides in Japan. (In 2000 1756 of 31,042 suicides were believed to be work related.)  In Australia thirty one percent of the suicides studied were work related. In New Zealand work stress in banks is blamed for high turnover and suicides.

There is no reference to Cubicles or Subliminal Distraction in any of these cases.

http://www.hazards.org/workedtodeath/workedtodeath2.htm

In the United States worker suicide sometimes happens after a mass shooting event. This parallels Amok and Iich'aa.

 

India Times article:

"Karoshi thus represents a kamikaze sort of extreme that can shade off into burnout, malingering, and to use a recent buzzword, `presentism’ which happens when people are stressed but too afraid
to call in sick: While they show up, they’re still too buzzed-up to be productive."

"Lexically, burnout may be old hat. But classic manuals of mental health disorders still refuse to recognise it. The main symptoms—-cognitive impairment and excessive fatigue or lassitude—-supposedly emerge only in the long term. "

"Torbjorn Akerstedt of Karolinska Institute told a sleep symposium at the Woolcock Institute in Sydney that...The researchers also found personality to be the strongest predictor of burnout. People who scored high on emotionality seemed to experience more distress as a result of workplace pressures. "
 

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/936553.cms

Cognitive impairment and fatigue appear in Icelandic Disease.

 

 

Koro also shenjing shaijo

A wide-spread belief that the retraction of the penis or nipples into the body will cause death. There are no known psychiatric outcomes from this belief. Injuries happen when extreme measures are taken to prevent that retraction.

Panics have occurred in Africa over the belief that magic can cause the genitals to disappear.

BBC news reports

Thursday, 12 April, 2001, 18:10 GMT 19:10 UK
'Missing' penis sparks mob lynching


 "Police in the south western Nigerian state of Osun say they have embarked on a constant patrol after mobs lynched at least 12 people since last weekend. All the killings occurred after the victims were accused of making people's genital organs disappear."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/africa/newsid_1274000/1274235.stm

Tuesday, 27 November, 2001, 15:51 GMT
Benin alert over 'penis theft' panic

"The authorities in Benin have ordered security forces to curb violence in the commercial capital, Cotonou, following the deaths of five people by vigilantes There have been reports of at least 10 such attacks since Saturday. Four of those who died were burned, another man was hacked to death. Correspondents say that mobs have attacked indivduals accused of using magic to steal men's penises."
 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/africa/newsid_1678000/1678996.stm

CNN news report

January 18, 1997
7 killed in Ghana over 'penis-snatching' episodes

"According to police, two men were lynched Thursday and by Friday the death toll had risen to seven. Victims allege that the sorcerers touched them to make their genitals shrink or, in some cases, disappear to extort cash for the promise of a cure. Inspector General of Police Peter Nanfuri told state television he was prepared to call in the army."

"Medical experts have appeared on state television explaining in detail why penises increase and decrease in size. One doctor linked the phenomenon to fear."

http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/9701/18/briefs/ghana.penis.html

 

 

 

Mal Vientos

This news letter is from the NIH. See the cover, last page of the adobe document.

"Among the Maya people of Belize, malevolent sprits can cause mal vientos or bad winds. ...Symptoms of a person suffering from mal vientos often include but are not limited to poor sleep, nightmares, irregular heartbeat, itching skin, poor appetite, indigestion, and melancholy. Patients sometimes report hearing voices. Treatment again varies from healer to healer, but includes prayer, herbal teas and baths, burning of copal incense,  and obtaining a protective amulet from the healer."

In this case hearing voices is your clue that a mental event was involved. The other cited symptoms may or may not be related to that event. The CBS may also be a  "idiom of distress" and locals will attribute other unrelated sickness to it.

http://sciweb.nybg.org/science2/pdfs/mb/Balick.pdf

 

 

P'a Ling  Wind Illness (wei han zhen -frigophobia)

Victims exhibit a fear of cold or the wind and do things that would keep them warm. Ethnic Chinese in China and Southeast Asia are effected.

There was not enough description to conclude that this is a CBS. The location of Southeast Asia for a fear of the cold or wind suggests dissociative or psychotic etiology but this is not conclusive.

If it can be shown that living and working arrangements for  victims of P'a Ling would allow exposure from Subliminal Distraction it would allow inclusion of this behavior as a CBS within the description of this page.

This entry is incomplete...

 

This PubMed page includes a case in the abstract text.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=9711375&dopt=Abstract

 

 

 

Panic Attacks

This is the second page entry for anxiety and there is a separate page for Panic Attacks. The entry is here because the phenomenon and conflict of physiology causes them just as it causes some Culture Bound Syndromes.

I had panic attacks. I did not understand them at the time. They started and stopped and I did not know why. As I formulated the theory for this site I realized that panic attacks were similar to some of the Culture Bound Syndromes.

As I did the research for that page I remembered what I did to stop the panic attacks. I moved a computer workstation from a position as a room divider, center of the room,  where family members walked beside me as I worked, to a corner position where I had Cubicle Level Protection. The move and correct design of the workstation was an accident. This happened many years ago before modern computers had been introduced.  I now use a laptop and sit with my back to a wall.

 

 

Pica

Augusta Chronicle

The clay eaters - Geophagia disorder seen as a cultural phenomenon, especially in rural South -  Web posted March 18, 1999 By Tom Corwin Staff Writer

"...kaolin, a white clay mined in Georgia and South Carolina that is used for everything from making ceramics and textiles to diarrhea medicine. For decades, it has also been a folk medicine that pregnant women, particularly black women in the rural South, have used to combat cravings during pregnancy. A recent study published in the Southern Medical Journal argues that kaolin-eating should be classed as a particular kind of problem known as a "culture-bound syndrome,''..."

"Persistently eating non-food items is a psychiatric disorder called pica, and eating dirt is a specific disorder known as geophagia, Dr. Grigsby said."

"Dr. Devoe said. It may come from changes in the brain itself, in the areas that control taste and smell, from the hormonal changes of pregnancy..."

Even given both doctor's comments, except for claims of addiction to the habit, there are no psychiatric outcomes from this practice. It does not meet this site's definition of a CBS.

http://chronicle.augusta.com/stories/031899/fea_clay.shtml

 

Qi Gong Psychosis

Help sites about  Qi Gong around the world acknowledge that the psychotic episodes of Qi Gong happen when too many exercise periods are done in a compact time frame. But they are not aware of the conflict of physiology. Instead they integrate the concept of Universal Life Energy and blame the student's rush in the attempt to effect desired outcomes from Qi Gong.

The beneficial effects of Qi Gong being studied by institutions such as Harvard Med are actually caused by the phenomenon and subliminal stimulation of the subconscious. It functions as self hypnosis. Qi Gong health sites suggest that you not concentrate on your specific illness but on general health improvement instead. One site by a long time instructor says that Qi Gong  works best when done in groups. The claim is that each person's aura blends with those auras of the group and resonate to achieve the beneficial effect. 

Of course there must be movement near the participants which is detected subliminally. Without a group exercise there is nothing to detect. If you exercise in a studio with floor to ceiling mirrors you can detect your own movement reflected in the mirror. These references are included in the Links section of the  Qi Gong page.

Symptoms:

 

 

Schizophrenia (Not a CBS)

Would it surprise you to learn that the delusions of Schizophrenia are different depending on the culture?

"Schizophrenia is another disorder that expresses itself differently according to culture. In Ireland, which used to be a pious country, patients with schizophrenia would often have delusions of sainthood (their delusions of grandeur today no doubt feature Dublin real estate agents). In technologically advanced places like the US, patients would report that they were being spied on by television or secretly x-rayed, whereas in Japan, which prizes social conformity, those with schizophrenia may have delusions of being publicly humiliated. In some non-Western cultures, schizophrenic delusions single out the person as spiritually gifted. Doctors can't always assume that a patient's family will share their view of mental illness."

New Zealand  site.  http://www.listener.co.nz/default,1983.sm
 

The wide-spread distribution of Schizophrenia prevents it being considered a CBS. It is not confined to one geographic area or ethnic group. But too-close side-by-side seating in classrooms is the same design problem and causes the same exposure that I cite as the cause of CBS's. Unlike Knowledge workers school children do not spend eight hours in a concentrating mental state. They give full mental investment and attention at different times during the day. The exposure is much lighter because it can only happen during those times that mental investment is engaged.

A normal growth spurt at puberty increases body size so that movement of the person in the next row of seats is more likely to be detected subliminally. Cause of Psychotic Mental Illness

The exposure to subliminal distraction in classrooms and other activities, proposed here as the cause of Schizophrenia, also happens in Kundalini Yoga and Qi Gong. See those entries on this page and on separate pages. Kundalini Yoga  Qi Gong

 

Screaming Seaman

A sudden panic attack aboard submarines has been named Screaming Seaman. I discovered the problem in the book Bold Endeavors. Usually a specially trained corpsman deals with the person and the incident is not recorded in that person's service record.

Similar behaviors have occurred in research teams and expeditions where many people lived in a single room for months.

The term is also used as a slang expression.

 

"Other attention has been paid to the need to "select out" clear cases of psychopathology (e.g., the Navy’s desire to eliminate the incidence of the "screaming seaman" phenomenon aboard submarines or the aerospace industry’s wish to keep suicidal pilots out of the cockpit)."
 

One mention in this report. http://pweb.jps.net/~gangale/opsa/EffectsOfOrganizationalStructure/asapat_frm.htm

 

 

Shin-byung

A victim of Shin-byung would have hallucinations during a protracted but psychosomatic illness. They might believe the illness is caused by their spirit possession by an ancestor. The ancestor persuades them to become a shaman, creating a cure. This syndrome is said to be decreasing. The form of the syndrome follows Windigo Psychosis. Instead of believing they are becoming a flesh eating monster the Korean ethnic experience causes the victim to believe they are possessed.

The fact that the syndrome is decreasing may point to improved housing. There was no reference to the season of the year when this syndrome happens. Cold weather incidents would strengthen the conclusion that it is another close-space confinement problem.

 

 

Susto

 

Fright sickness, Susto,  is part of a complex of illnesses, which fall within the belief systems in rural areas of the Americas. A sudden frightening experience is thought to cause it. The literal meaning is "loss of the soul." There are several potions listed as being treatments but the link from Rice below explains that a ritual called a barrida, or sweeping,  is often used. The victim lies down along the axis of a crucifix while the ceremony is performed. Incantations are spoken as prayers in groups of three. The body is swept with herbs and several treatments are necessary to effect a cure. This information links suggestibility to treatment. The delay created by twice weekly barridas would allow a recovery from exposure to Subliminal Distraction. Just as ICU Psychosis victims recover once they leave a hospital intensive care unit, victims of Susto should recover once their exposure stops or drops in frequency.

Those with true serious illness may use the term Susto as an 'idom of distress' reflecting cultural beliefs that fright causes illness.

In his book "Boo! Culture, Experience, and the Startle Reflex" Dr. Simons has a section on this syndrome. It is part of the belief system that misfortune of a parent may cause illness in a child. Dr Simons connects startle to Susto.

The diagnosis that fright causes illness is similar to PTSD in the United States.

http://www.rice.edu/projects/HispanicHealth/Courses/mod7/susto.html

 

 

 

Taijin-kyofu-sho

I have found little about the activities of those who have this syndrome. The ages of the proposed  group, young Japanese men, might fall into the risk group for dissociative mental breaks from classroom exposure. It would appear that Takjin Kyofusho is a miss-construed concept of  Japanese social aversion.

 

This article disputes that Takjin Kyofusho should be a CBS.

The American Journal of Psychiatry Letter to the Editor

Is Taijin Kyofusho a Culture-Bound Syndrome? KATSUAKI SUZUKI, M.D., Ph.D., NORI TAKEI, M.D., Ph.D., M.Sc., MASAYOSHI KAWAI, M.D., YOSHIO MINABE, M.D., Ph.D., and NORIO MORI, M.D., Ph.D.
Shizuoka, Japan

"...taijin kyofusho is classified into four subtypes: sekimen-kyofu (the phobia of blushing), shubo-kyofu (the phobia of a deformed body), jikoshisen-kyofu (the phobia of eye-to-eye contact), and jikoshu-kyofu (the phobia of one’s own foul body odor)...."

The article argues that the same phobias appear in western countries and as other disorders in the DSM. These phobias are not exclusive to Japan. Therefore it would not be a CBS.

http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/content/full/160/7/1358

 

 

Ufufuyane

"An anxiety state popularly attributed to magical potions administered by rejected lovers, or spirit possession. Features include shouting, sobbing, repeated neologisms, paralysis, convulsions and a trance-like stupor or loss of consciousness.
Most victims are young unmarried women. Some experience nightmares with sexual themes or rare episodes of temporary blindness. Attacks, which can continue for days or weeks, may be provoked by the sight of men or foreigners."

 

http://trickcyclists.co.uk/pdf/Culture_Specific_Disorders.PDF

 

 

Windigo Psychosis (Also Sp Wendigo)
This mental event is associated with Native Americans of the upper United States and Canada. It is said to effect women during winter weather.. Close confinement in small over wintering quarters would provide opportunities for exposure to SD. Eventually one of the family chooses to perform craft work or repairs in a location where they can subliminally detect movement of the other family members in the small rooms. Victims believe they are becoming, or are being chased by, the Windigo monster, a cannibal.

 The link below right is from the Canadian Journal of Psychiatry, Transcultural Psychiatry. On the last page it mentions that tribes  dispersed from summer quarters to over winter in smaller family groups. Sometimes the family failed to return in the spring, all members having died during the winter. Understanding Windigo Psychosis proposes that when the mental event happens to women or teenage girls the family group survives the winter. Stories are told and the legend is created.

But what would happen if the male support figure for the group was the victim? Homicidal or suicidal impulses, depression, distaste for food,  and nausea are listed as symptoms of this disorder. Events such as Amok, Going Postal, or Iich'aa, which are caused by the same exposure to SD, could mean that several family members would be injured or killed. Other suspected causes of the deaths of entire families are  starvation or natural accidents such as avalanches.

Paranoia is often listed in the symptoms of CBS's. Another thought in the linked article is that cooperation is required to survive in harsh conditions and any conflict, arguments, disobedience could tip the balance between survival and death. Paranoia in victims of SPVP might be that tipping factor too.

One reference from a different source suggests that burning the feet was a treatment for this problem. Delusional wandering caused by hearing voices would cause victims to walk into the forest in cold weather. Unless they could be tracked before additional snow, they faced certain death from exposure. Such burning might have been a preventative measure. Cases on the Missing Students page indicate that some recent student disappearances were during cold weather and the student was not dressed for that weather. The case of Ron Tammen, Miami of Ohio, 1953, is one such case. He was observed in an altered mental state poorly dressed several miles away from school wearing a light blanket jacket. There was snow on the ground. He had used his car earlier in the evening but was on foot when sighted.


Books, biographies, and both true, or fictional stories using true accounts, on the fur trapping period in the American Rocky Mountains tell of trappers preferring to over winter alone rather than with one or more cabin mates. I don't recall full details but the problem was that one of the group might go berserk attempting to kill the other residents of the cabin. My memory is that this was named Cabin Fever. That name has a different meaning today. It generally refers to SAD. (Seasonal Affective Disorder)



This is an interesting read and can be accessed free. http://www.cpa-apc.org/Publications/Archives/CJP/2000/June/InReview5.asp 

The Merk Source and Dorman's Medical Dictionary index page. http://www.mercksource.com/pp/us/cns/cns_home.jsp
Hint: Search under Disease or Syndromes

Student paper finds case of cannibalism-- Windigo.     http://www.expressnews.ualberta.ca/article.cfm?id=6855

 

 

Yi-Ping (hysteria) This disorder is not listed as a CBS. It is a common clinical diagnosis in China.

Possession appears around the world. It is often seen as evidence of the possessed person having supernatural powers. I have been unable to find any reference to speaking to or for assessors as "hearing voices." But that is what it is.  Some of the other symptoms involve sadness and fear.

 

The Clinical Characteristics of Possession Disorder Among 20 Chinese Patients in the Hebei Province of China
Albert C. Gaw, M.D., Qin-zhang Ding, M.D., Ruth E. Levine, M.D. and Hsiao-feng Gaw, L.I.C.S.W.


"Chinese vernacular uses three terms to describe the possessed state: kwei-fu, dzao-mo, and zhong-xea . However, lay people may use the three terms interchangeably, without making the distinctions that would be made by a specialist in traditional Chinese medicine. "
 

"...In a survey of 488 societies in all parts of the world, Bourgignon  found that 437 of the societies (90 percent) had one or more institutionalized, culturally patterned form of altered states of consciousness. In 252 societies (52 percent), such experiences were attributed to possession. "

This site argues that these altered mental states are caused by exposure to Subliminal Distraction.

"...Possessing agents were thought to be spirits of deceased individuals, deities, animals, and devils. Twenty percent of subjects reported multiple possessions. The initial experience of possession typically came on acutely and often became a chronic relapsing illness. Almost all subjects manifested the two symptoms of loss of control over their actions and acting differently. They frequently showed loss of awareness of surroundings, loss of personal identity, inability to distinguish reality from fantasy, change in tone of voice, and loss of perceived sensitivity to pain. CONCLUSIONS: Preliminary findings indicate that the disorder is a syndrome with distinct clinical characteristics that adheres most closely to the DSM-IV diagnosis of dissociative trance disorder under the category of dissociative disorder not otherwise specified.
 ..."

Note that the highlighted text is indicative of a dissociative/psychotic mental break.

"Symptoms may include movement disturbances (inhibition or hyperactivity), sensory disturbances (visual or auditory changes), emotional constriction or hyperemotionality, and psychological symptoms (wandering, amnesia, pseudodementia, or multiple personality)."

 

Psychiatr Serv 49:360-365, March 1998 http://ps.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/content/full/49/3/360

 

 

 

(Additional syndromes will be added here as I have time.)

 

 



Conclusion


Culture Bound Syndromes are a confused concept in psychology. Physical illness and behavior based on ethnic and cultural beliefs are mixed with a group of mental events.

The same phenomenon that creates the mental events has always been present in all human populations. It produces a variety of outcomes.

The phenomenon is engaged anytime someone concentrates while there is repeating detectable movement near by to create a peripheral vision reflex.

The brain quickly learns to ignore these reflexes but cannot stop seeing the movement and cannot stop generating the reflexes subliminally.

High intensity or frequent stimulation produces a brief event and there is usually a full recovery. Low levels and infrequent but persistent stimulation produces a life time altered mental state.

 

 

 

Links

Culture Bound Syndromes

This site has no author or source given. It seems to have the wording of the DSM entries for CBS's. Some of the source links are based in South Africa.

http://rjg42.tripod.com/culturebound_syndromes.htm

 

 

BOLD ENDEAVORS: BEHAVIORAL LESSONS FROM POLAR AND SPACE EXPLORATION

Gravitational and Space Biology Bulletin 13(2), June 2000

Jack W. Stuster Anacapa Sciences, Inc., Santa Barbara, CA

Close confinement in a research ship stranded in polar ice produced psychiatric symptoms.

"As the weeks blended one into another, the condition deepened into depression and then despair. Eventually, crew members lost almost all motivation and found it difficult to concentrate or even to eat. One man weakened and died of a heart ailment that Cook believed was caused, at least in part, by his terror of the darkness. Another crewman became obsessed with the notion that others intended to kill him; when he slept, he squeezed himself into a small recess in the ship so that he could not easily be found. Yet another man succumbed to hysteria that rendered him temporarily deaf and unable to speak.
Additional members of the crew were disturbed in other ways. It was to this dismal condition that Roald Amundsen referred when he later wrote, “Insanity and disease stalked the decks of the Belgica that winter.”"

 

http://paperairplane.mit.edu/16.423J/Space/SBE/selected_topics/bold_endeavors.pdf

BC's Journal of Mental Health "Visions"

This issue has a long article on CBS's.

http://www.cmha-bc.org/content/resources/visions/issues/09.pdf

 

Baridi: A Culture-Bound Syndrome Among the Bena Peoples in Tanzania ANITTA JUNTUNEN, PhD
Kajaani Polytechnic

http://tcn.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/16/1/15

 

Culture Bound Syndromes  An older site.

Explains current belief of  the relation of CBS's  to western disorders and groups CBS's into seven broad categories. Although only a few short pages this is a major site for CBS's. It always ranks high in Google searches. A glossary is linked and it has a list of CBS's.

http://weber.ucsd.edu/~thall/cbs_intro.html

 

Daht Syndrome - British Journal of Psychiatry - Full article

http://bjp.rcpsych.org/cgi/content/full/184/3/200

PDF version      http://bjp.rcpsych.org/cgi/reprint/184/3/200

 

 

Daht - Indian Journal of Psychiatry - PDF

http://www.indianpsychiatry.com/dhat..pdf

 

 

 

American Journal of Psychiatry 

Research on Culture-Bound Syndromes: New Directions
Peter J. Guarnaccia, Ph.D., and Lloyd H. Rogler, Ph.D.


"Glossary of Culture-Bound Syndromes in appendix I of DSM-IV (p. 844), is as follows:


"The term culture-bound syndrome denotes recurrent, locality-specific patterns of aberrant behavior and troubling experience that may or may not be linked to a particular DSM-IV diagnostic category. Many of these patterns are indigenously considered to be "illnesses," or at least afflictions, and most have local names . . . . culture-bound syndromes are generally limited to specific societies or culture areas and are localized, folk, diagnostic categories that frame coherent meanings for certain repetitive, patterned, and troubling sets of experiences and observations."      Quote is from the article not full text of DSM IV

The article uses Ataque de nervios to suggest a method for research.

http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/content/full/156/9/1322

 

Julian Samora Research Institute

Curanderismo and the DSM-IV: Diagnostic and Treatment Implications for the Mexican American Client

 

http://www.jsri.msu.edu/RandS/research/ops/oc45.html

 University of Utah

 

Extensive information on sight.


http://webvision.med.utah.edu/

Kimball's Biology Pages 

A simple explanation of the eye and sight.

http://users.rcn.com/jkimball.ma.ultranet/BiologyPages/V/Vision.html

 

Latah

This is the "print page" for FindArticles. It is a discussion of Latah as a social artifice of Malingering for gain, social recognition.

"Recently, psychiatrist Jack Jenner (1990, 1991) reportedly discovered seemingly indisputable evidence that latah is an abnormality of the human startle mechanism that varies with cultural conditioning."

"There are numerous historical precedents for malingering for social gain, or institutionalized feigning. Anthropologist Michael Kenny contends that "severe" latah subjects do not enter an altered state of consciousness, but are engaged in latah "performance" and "theater" (Kenny 1978:209)."

 

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2843/is_n6_v19/ai_17782626/print

 

 

Links  (Material is often posted in this section before appearing on the page above.)

 

Surgeon General of the United States

Overview of Cultural Diversity and Mental Health Services
 

http://www.surgeongeneral.gov/library/mentalhealth/chapter2/sec8.html

 

 

 

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If you have friends or family using computers in unprotected workspace in homes, dorms, student apartments, or small business offices have them read this section. You do not need my permission to email this section or to print it out and post a copy at your  workplace. VisionAndPsychosis.Net© is the title of the copyright filing. That URL must appear on any printed copy so that readers can find the site.
 

Prevention:  This  section is now repeated at the bottom of most pages.

The rare occurrence of the injury establishes that is difficult to create enough exposure to cause an injury. But when it does happen the consequences are serious, possibly fatal.

 Our personal experience was intermittent human traffic during eight-hour workdays for thirty calendar days.

If you have a tower CPU mount it under your desk. That's the way they position it in a cubicle. The hard drive busy light is about the height of your low peripheral vision if you put the tower on the desk. Desktop reading of text or writing notes beside the keyboard on the side of the monitor away from the tower makes the blinking hard drive busy light appear to approach from behind when you turn to view the screen again.

If you have a computer work station/desk in which you turn ninety degrees to write or do other non computer work, turn off the monitor when you turn aside. Remove screen savers in this instance. The movement, animation for example, in your screensaver, two-dimensional movement, might well be detected by your peripheral vision at close range. Alternately cover the monitor screen.

All home, apartment, or dorm computer workstations are in unprotected workspace. To change that put the computer in a quiet room with no possible movement. If that is not possible in a dorm or apartment position the computer so that your peripheral vision can see only stationary walls as you use the computer in a busy room. In Cubicles and 'Systems Furniture' these protective features are achieved with peripheral vision blocking panels and corner seating positions. It is called 'Cubicle Level Protection.'

If you use computer or CD-ROM games for many hours day after day, the game playing position should follow the same rules as the computer workstation. Battery operated games will not run long enough on a single rechargeable battery to cause a risk for SPVP.

Although a laptop does not have a visible blinking light in peripheral vision the same rules apply to your work position.  There should not be human traffic moving to you from behind. There should be nothing behind you, which could enter your subliminal peripheral vision field as you turn your head while working at the laptop and be mistaken for threat movement.

Only movement coming from behind you into your Subliminal Peripheral Vision can cause a peripheral vision reflex. If the movement source approaches you from ahead then enters your Subliminal Peripheral Vision from conscious sight there can be no peripheral vision reflex.

 

Repeated for Emphasis:

A single session or rare sessions will not cause this problem.

It is the same day after day long hours of play or computer use with detectable movement in ‘Subliminal Peripheral Vision,’ which would form the basis of a risk for SPVP injury.

Exposure can be cumulative 

The brain’s detection system only evaluates movement. There is little recognition of the nature of the object in peripheral vision. If you have several hours exposure from human traffic at the library, while reading at an open table or seated in a reading room chair, followed by long hours watching TV with a critically misplaced ceiling fan sweeping detectable shadows around the room, the combination of those two behaviors might cause the problem. The suggestion is that either activity alone would not consume enough exposure time even if the critical movement is present.

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Because the phenomenon is  a normal feature of human physiology the sudden dissociative/psychotic events it causes should be happening  around the world.

Where are the cases?

They are misunderstood and evaluated as Culture Bound Syndromes.

The dissociative/psychotic mental break happens when a situation is created that copies the situation those design engineers accidentally created  in the business office.

Each tribe or group has different values and beliefs. When the event happens the victim, and observers, experience it in terms of their cultural experience and  belief set.

The method of listing and categorizing mental illness used in writing the DSM fails when it encounters this phenomenon.

 When the different symptoms are listed and evaluated, although similar,  they do not connect the cultural syndromes.

Without knowledge of the conflict of physiology and that it is Accidental Operant Conditioning, writers of the DSM believe these events are shaped by stress and other factors, nutrition for example.

Researchers attempting to evaluate 'Jumping Frenchmen of Maine Syndrome' came close. They decided that hyper-suggestibility indicated that operant conditioning caused the syndrome.

That is correct. The phenomenon and conflict of physiology uses peripheral vision as a channel to the subconscious. It is as if there had been hypnosis performed.

It is still not clear exactly what factors create different outcomes but there is a relation to the rates and timing of stimulation.

Others have noted that when the onset is fast there is a complete recovery from Brief Psychotic Disorder.

The examples of Qi Gong and Kundalini Yoga show that slow  persistent stimulation over long periods produce a severely altered mental state.

While Qi Gong Deviation or Psychotic Reaction is listed as a Culture Bound Syndrome, the Awakening of Kundalini is not.

Simple observation reveals that both exercises have the same eyes-open attempts at concentration or meditation while performing the slow motion karate katas or Yoga poses.  The poses in Kundalini Yoga are not held. Meditation before the exercise allows time to enter a meditating state.

 

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Treatment?  

 

This site does not diagnosis or offer treatment. That is beyond the scope of this site. But where Culture Bound Syndromes are concerned prevention may be the same as treatment. It is not necessary to stop any other treatment or medication to effect prevention. Before anything is done you should have a full neurological work-up. There are conditions that will cause the same symptoms as mental disorders.

Some psychotropic drugs have a rebound effect when they are suddenly stopped. Never discontinue a drug treatment on your own.

If as this page argues your case is has been caused by exposure to Subliminal Distraction, searching within the person's daily activities for a place and source of exposure would confirm that connection.

In instances of ICU Psychosis the intensive care patient recovers once they leave the ICU. Therefore locating and eliminating the specific exposure for each person should effect a recovery. This applies to Panic Attacks, PTSD, as well as any CBS.

It is not necessary to eliminate all exposure. We all have exposure, most of it is harmless. A threshold of exposure in a compact time frame is the trigger for an episode. Low level but persistent exposure creates a different problem. Still, locating and eliminating ongoing exposure is a start and may effect a recovery. The problem can be considered Operant Conditioning. Un-learning behavior will be a part of low level long term exposure.

Practitioners of Qi Gong and Kundalini Yoga often claim success in treating mental illness. They may be reversing the effect of previous operant conditioning because those two exercises create levels of exposure to Subliminal Distraction.

The Veteran's Administration has a page on EMDR. This treatment is ridiculed among professionals but it too may function as operant conditioning to reverse previous exposure. I don't know.

There is small section about possible sources of exposure at the bottom of most site pages. To begin use that as your guide. ...Prevention...

Peripheral Vision Reflexes are a warn first evaluate second system. That means any movement that can be detected in far peripheral vision can be a stimulus your brain may mistake for "threat movement." In the case of Tommy Stein, Everquest Connection, it was a large fish in a tank he could reach out an touch with his right hand.

On the Astronauts & Insanity page the movement of  space station crew in crowded conditions allow exposure. There have been some very bizarre episodes in Antarctic stations. Just living in too-small or single-room conditions can allow exposure to be created. Read the Template paragraph near the top of the page text.

Dealing with low income families in crowded living conditions will be problematic.

 

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