M.G. CARTA, B. CARPINIELLO, P.COPPO, M.C. HARDOY, M.A. REDA, N. RUDAS - Vol. 6, Giugno 2000, num.2
Testo Immagini Bibliografia Summary Riassunto Indice
Cambiamento sociale e modificazioni
psicopatologiche.
Risultati di un programma di ricerche in popolazioni africane
Social changes and psychopathological
modifications.
Results of a research program in african populationsFour ages, four minds
M.G. CARTA, B. CARPINIELLO, P.COPPO, M.C. HARDOY, M.A. REDA*, N. RUDAS
Clinica Psichiatrica, Università di Cagliari
* Istituto di Psicologia Clinica e Generale, Università di Siena
This paper reports on the results of a research program on African populations.
The impact of cultural changes on self-perception and on psychological distress,
particularly on depressive symptomatology, is analysed. Studies also confirm
the existence of depressive symptoms in poorly industrialized populations
like the nomads Peul of Subsahara. However, in these populations depressive
symptoms are secondary to major somatic illnesses and are only primary in
literated subjects. Findings that emerge from our studies tend to support
two opposite ways of expression of the syndromal aggregations, one that we
define "western" or "of guilt" and the other that we call "traditional" or
"of the group dislocation".
Environmental factors seem to influence the evolution of depressive symptoms
and modify the threshold of onset of depressive emotional behavioural outlines.
It is hypothesized that this occurs through disturbances of the social arrangement
that render compulsive "self-responsibility"adaptive. The social change may
offer contingent opportunities that allow the subject, with particular basic
characteristics, to mature complex and innovative systems of reality interpretations,
to conceive the causality and the control of events and to live emotions.
Such a model may suggest a re-discussion of the concept of threshold and an
explanation of the transformation of depressive phenomenology if we suppose
that new organized systems of knowledge, despite meeting emergent requirements,
expose to a higher depressive vulnerability.