Culture Bound Syndrome

For instance, diarrhea and headaches, which are common symptoms of bacterial infections, are believed to occur due to jealousy, anxiety, and shame, which they term as natural causes. In addition, loss of weight and appetite is believed to be a temporary state of body weakness, which does not need medical attention and will cease with time. On the other hand, Lockwood (2009) explains that illnesses such as skin sores, leprosy, madness, epilepsy, and pneumonia occur as a result of direct supernatural causes. For instance, such cases of illnesses occur after a breach or transgression of some customary laws and taboos. For that reason, the only possible cure is through treatment by sorcerers or traditional Bushmen as opposed to going to the hospital (Shahid, Finn, Bessarab, & Thompson, 2009). This can have adverse effects on the health of the aboriginal people, especially where critical conditions like mental disorders or pneumonia are involved.

Beowulf is an old Anglo-Saxon story of a terrifying monster Grendel, Grendel travels to the Danes mead hall Heorot and while the danes expect it least he attacks killing countless men purely for the joys of doing so. Hrothgar king of the Danes calls for a warrior to fight this unruly beast. After 12 long years of grendel attacking Hrothgar's calls are answered and the great warrior Beowulf comes to kill Grendel. Beowulf travels to the land of the Danes from across the seas and in the first night he kills Grendel. Sadly for Beowulf Grendel has a mother that now seeks revenge for her son's death and Beowulf is asked to kill Grendel’s mother as well. Beowulf goes to where Grendel’s mother is staying and battled her to the death , Beowulf wins

What happens when two very different or even mutually exclusive cultural perspective are forced into contact with one another? In Anne Fadiman’s The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, there is a division between the shamanistic insubordinate cultural of Hmong refugees in Merced, California and the cold analytical approach of western medicine. In the early 1980s, the child of a Hmong refugee family in Merced, California is born with epilepsy, her name is Lia Lee. Anne Fadiman traces the interaction between these two cultures and Lia’s disease, she reviews that misunderstanding and miscommunication can have calamitous consequences for all involved. The author introduces many characters throughout the book and they all

To better understand possible causes of a culture bound syndrome, the culture should be first understood. Ghost Sickness affects the Navajo people in the western United States. The Navajo believe their people have passed through roughly three worlds before this current one. The “ Holy People ” are being who can either help or harm them. Their medicine men call upon the Holy People by performing rituals that involve singing, dancing, and the use of herbs. Someone with Ghost Sickness would be attempted to

Beowulf is an Old English epic poem that tells a story of a Geat hero named Beowulf who comes to the aid of Hrothgar, king of the Danes, and agrees to help his people defeat the monstrous Grendel. After successfully ridding the land of the beast, Beowulf eventually becomes the king of the Geats for quite some time until his own demise at the hands of another beast. The story was influenced by both pagan and Christian mythologies as it was written during a

1. The client system, in this case the Lee family, defines Lia’s seizures as both a spiritual and physical ailment. According to Fadiman (1997), “…the noise of the door had been so profoundly frightening that her soul had fled her body and become lost. They recognized the resulting symptoms as qaug dab peg, which means ‘the spirit catches you and you fall down’”(p.20). To the Lee family, Lia’s condition was as revered as it was frightening. While a person with qaug dab peg was traditionally held in high esteem in the Hmong culture, it was also terrifying enough that the Lee’s rushed Lia to the emergency room more than once in the first few months

The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down by Anne Fadiman is about the cross-cultural ethics in medicine. The book is about a small Hmong child named Lia Lee, who had epilepsy. Epilepsy is called, quag dab peg1 in the Hmong culture that translates to the spirit catches you and you fall down. In the Hmong culture this illness is sign of distinction and divinity, because most Hmong epileptics become shaman, or as the Hmong call them, txiv neeb2. These shamans are special people imbued with healing spirits, and are held to those having high morale character, so to Lia's parents, Foua Yang and Nao Kao Lee, the disease was both a gift and a curse. The main question in this case was could Lia have survived if her parent's and the doctors overcame

In Hmong culture seizures are not recognized much as a physical illness as it is spiritual in nature and quab dab peg which translates to, the spirit catches you and you fall down, describes the group of symptoms experienced by Lia in the Hmong culture. The Lee’s were both happy and sad about Lia’s seizures. In Hmong culture seizures are considered to have special powers and usually become Shamans, but at the same time the Lees were worried about their child’s health.

The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures written by Anne Fadmin writes “As William Osler once said – or is said to have said – ‘Ask not what disease the person has, but rather what person the disease has” (p. 275). This statement has significant meaning throughout this book especially when it came to the story of Lia. Lia was a young Hmong girl who suffered from Epilepsy. Due the Hmong culture playing a significant role in Lia's care, it caused communication barriers between Lia's parents and the health care professionals dealing this family that led to heartbreaking decisions.

The Hmong cultural/religious belief in shamanistic animism claim that wicked spirits are continually searching human souls, mostly those of defenseless or unappreciated children. For Hmong culture, epilepsy is known as qaug dab peg which means, "the spirit catches you and you fall down" in English (Fadiman 1997), which epileptic invasions are seen as affirmation of the epileptic's capability to enter and stay temporarily into the spirit world (unconsciousness). In Hmong

“In the Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down”, Anne Fadiman explores the subject of cross cultural misunderstanding. This she effectively portrays using Lia, a Hmong, her medical history, the misunderstandings created by obstacles of communication, the religious background, the battle with modernized medical science and cultural anachronisms. Handling an epileptic child, in a strange land in a manner very unlike the shamanistic animism they were accustomed to, generated many problems for her parents. The author dwells on the radically different cultures to highlight the necessity for medical communities to have an understanding of the immigrants when treating them.

The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down is a piece of journalism that demonstrates the clash between western medical practices and that of the Hmong culture. Both the physicians and Lia’s family are trying to do their best to improve Lia’s medical condition but the two cultures’ idea of treating her epilepsy contradict each others. Additionally, western medical culture and Hmong culture have different definitions for Lia’s illness. The western definition of her illness is epilepsy meaning a disruption of the electrical signals in the brain and the Hmong definition of epilepsy is soul exiting the body. As a western reader through the emersion in your culture you are subjective to have the opinion that the western way for handling epilepsy is the right way and from the Hmong perspective they are naturally subjective to think that the Hmong way of handling the epilepsy is the best way. There is not a clear answer to which way is the right way to handle Lia’s medical situation without being bias of your own culture. Not one way of medicine is better than the other, they are just different. The Hmong definition of medicine is takes a more personal holistic and spiritual approach in contrast to the westerner’s definition having an objective scientific approach. Although we cannot conclude which way of handling Lia’s medical situation is clearly the right way the one thing that is certain is that the two different cultures disrupt each other’s care for Lia. Fadiman’s journal on

In this story Beowulf took big fearful risks. Such as evil monsters,crazy mothers, and fire breathing dragons. “Grendel snatched at the first Geat he came to, ripped him apart, cut his body to bits with powerful jaws, Drank the blood from his veins and bolted him down, hands and feet; death and Grendel’s great teeth came together, snapping life shut.” (pg 416, 262-267) Grendel had torn apart and ate one of the men that was trying to defend Beowulf . That Geat risked his life to go fight the evil monster and that could have easily been Beowulf.

In the epic Beowulf, the Geatish warrior for which the story is named (Beowulf) sails across the sea with intention of slaying the terrible man-eating monster, Grendel. Beowulf is successful in this endeavor; mortally wounding Grendel by tearing his arm from its socket. Grendel's mother, a fearsome creature herself, is enraged by her son's death and seeks to avenge her son's death by killing Beowulf. However, Beowulf ventures to their lair; ultimately killing Grendel's mother as well. Pagan elements are prevalent throughout the entire novel.

one must look for the signs of it by researching cultures who are long gone and