In many parts of Chinese society, the experience of depressionis physical rather than psychological. Many depressed Chinesepeople do not report feeling sad, but rather express boredom,discomfort, feelings of inner pressure, and symptoms of pain,dizziness, and fatigue. These culturally coded symptoms mayconfound diagnosis among Chinese immigrants in the United States,many of whom find the diagnosis of depression morally unacceptableand experientially meaningless; this cultural pattern changesover time but continues to diverge significantly from the experiencesof other groups. The pattern of somatization may be unfamiliarto U.S. clinicians and may further complicate the concept . . . [Full Text of this Article]
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From the Department of Anthropology, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass., and the Departments of Social Medicine and Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School, Boston.
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