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Tarantism, dancing mania and demonopathy: the anthro-political aspects of 'mass psychogenic illness'.

This study questions the widely held assumption that the phenomenon known as mass psychogenic illness (MPI) exists per se in nature as a psychiatric disorder. Most MPI studies are problematical, being descriptive, retrospective investigations of specific incidents which conform to a set of pre-exist...

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Main Author: Bartholomew, R.E.
Format: Article
Published: 1994
Subjects:
R Medicine
Online Access:http://eprints.um.edu.my/1453/
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8084927
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id my.um.eprints.1453
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spelling my.um.eprints.14532013-12-11T02:06:57Z http://eprints.um.edu.my/1453/ Tarantism, dancing mania and demonopathy: the anthro-political aspects of 'mass psychogenic illness'. Bartholomew, R.E. R Medicine This study questions the widely held assumption that the phenomenon known as mass psychogenic illness (MPI) exists per se in nature as a psychiatric disorder. Most MPI studies are problematical, being descriptive, retrospective investigations of specific incidents which conform to a set of pre-existing symptom criteria that are used to determine the presence of collective psychosomatic illness. Diagnoses are based upon subjective, ambiguous categories that reflect stereotypes of female normality which assume the presence of a transcultural disease or disorder entity, underemphasizing or ignoring the significance of episodes as culturally conditioned roles of social action. Examples of this bias include the mislabelling of dancing manias, tarantism and demonopathy in Europe since the Middle Ages as culture-specific variants of MPI. While 'victims' are typified as mentally disturbed females possessing abnormal personality characteristics who are exhibiting cathartic reactions to stress, it is argued that episodes may involve normal, rational people who possess unfamiliar conduct codes, world-views and political agendas that differ significantly from those of Western-trained investigators who often judge these illness behaviours independent of their local context and meanings. 1994-05 Article PeerReviewed Bartholomew, R.E. (1994) Tarantism, dancing mania and demonopathy: the anthro-political aspects of 'mass psychogenic illness'. Psychological medicine, 24 (2). pp. 281-306. ISSN 0033-2917 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8084927 8084927
institution Universiti Malaya
building UM Library
collection Institutional Repository
continent Asia
country Malaysia
content_provider Universiti Malaya
content_source UM Research Repository
url_provider http://eprints.um.edu.my/
topic R Medicine
spellingShingle R Medicine
Bartholomew, R.E.
Tarantism, dancing mania and demonopathy: the anthro-political aspects of 'mass psychogenic illness'.
description This study questions the widely held assumption that the phenomenon known as mass psychogenic illness (MPI) exists per se in nature as a psychiatric disorder. Most MPI studies are problematical, being descriptive, retrospective investigations of specific incidents which conform to a set of pre-existing symptom criteria that are used to determine the presence of collective psychosomatic illness. Diagnoses are based upon subjective, ambiguous categories that reflect stereotypes of female normality which assume the presence of a transcultural disease or disorder entity, underemphasizing or ignoring the significance of episodes as culturally conditioned roles of social action. Examples of this bias include the mislabelling of dancing manias, tarantism and demonopathy in Europe since the Middle Ages as culture-specific variants of MPI. While 'victims' are typified as mentally disturbed females possessing abnormal personality characteristics who are exhibiting cathartic reactions to stress, it is argued that episodes may involve normal, rational people who possess unfamiliar conduct codes, world-views and political agendas that differ significantly from those of Western-trained investigators who often judge these illness behaviours independent of their local context and meanings.
format Article
author Bartholomew, R.E.
author_facet Bartholomew, R.E.
author_sort Bartholomew, R.E.
title Tarantism, dancing mania and demonopathy: the anthro-political aspects of 'mass psychogenic illness'.
title_short Tarantism, dancing mania and demonopathy: the anthro-political aspects of 'mass psychogenic illness'.
title_full Tarantism, dancing mania and demonopathy: the anthro-political aspects of 'mass psychogenic illness'.
title_fullStr Tarantism, dancing mania and demonopathy: the anthro-political aspects of 'mass psychogenic illness'.
title_full_unstemmed Tarantism, dancing mania and demonopathy: the anthro-political aspects of 'mass psychogenic illness'.
title_sort tarantism, dancing mania and demonopathy: the anthro-political aspects of 'mass psychogenic illness'.
publishDate 1994
url http://eprints.um.edu.my/1453/
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8084927
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score 13.211869

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