The document discusses several culture-bound syndromes and psychological disorders including hypochondriasis, somatization disorder, body dysmorphic disorder, dissociative identity disorder, and possession trance disorder. Many of these conditions involve physical or imagined symptoms that have psychological or cultural causes and can be treated with therapies like cognitive behavioral therapy.

1. Aloha|Faye|Jai|Lenard

3. characterized by anxiety or fear that one
has a serious disease
Ancient root (Greeks): it
has something to do
with hypochondria, a
region below the ribs
wherein organs that can
be found in this region
can affect mental state

4. - Severe anxiety over physical problems that are
medically undetectable
- Affects men and women equally
- May emerge at any age
- Comorbid w/ Anxiety & Mood disorders
- Course: Chronic
- Evident in diverse cultures

5. CULTURE-SPECIFIC SYNDROMES THAT FIT WITH
HYPOCHONDRIASIS
• Koro: belief, accompanied by severe anxiety and sometimes
panic, that the genitals are retracting into the abdomen
[mostly Chinese males]
• Dhat: associated w/ vague mix of physical
symptoms, including dizziness, weakness and fatigue that are
not so specific

6. CAUSES Faulty
interpretation of
physical sensations
Additional physical Intensified focus on
symptoms symptoms
Increased anxiety

7. TREATMENT
Explanatory therapy
Cognitive-behavioral treatment to challenge illness perception
Counseling and/or support groups to provide reassurance

8. Formerly known as Briquet’s syndrome [for
more than 100 yrs] and was changed in
1980 to somatization disorder
- Reports of multiple physical symptoms without
medical basis
- Runs in families (probable heritable basis)
- Rare (most prevalent among unmarried women
low in socioeconomic groups)
- Onset usually in adolescence; often persists into
old age

9. CAUSES Continual
development of
new symptoms
Immediate
Eventual social
sympathy and
isolation
attention

10. TREATMENT
Hard to treat!
Cognitive-behavioral therapy to provide reassurace, reduce stress, and
minimize help-seeking behaviors
Therapy to broaden basis for relating to others

11. Refers to pain in one or more sites in the body
that is associated with significant distress or
impairment
There may have been physical reasons for
pain but psychological factors play a major
role in maintaining it.

12. Generally have to do with physical
malfunctioning, such as paralysis, blindness or
difficulty speaking, without any physical or organic
pathology to account for malfunction
DSM-5 Proposal: Functional Neurological Disorder
The term was used by Freud
who believed that anxiety
resulting from unconscious
conflicts somehow was
“converted” into physical

13. - Comorbid with: Anxiety & Mood disorders
- Coincide with somatization disorders
- Affected people are genuinely unaware that they can
function normally
- Most prevalent in low socio-economic groups,
primarily in women and also in men under extreme
stress

14. CAUSES
Life stresses or
psychological conflict
Social influences
Reduced by
(symptoms learned
incapacitating
from observing real
symptoms
illness or injury)

15. TREATMENT
Same as for somatization disorder, with emphasis on
resolving life stress or conflict and reducing help-
seeking behaviors
CBT & Catharsis

17. Features a disruptive preoccupation with
some imagined defect in appearance
(imagined ugliness) by someone who
actually looks reasonably normal. This was
previously known as dysmorphobia.
- Prevalence is not known
- Affects men and women equally
- Associated with obsessive-compulsive disorder

18. CAUSES Intrusive, anxiety-provoking
idea that individual has a
physical defect apparent to
everyone
Pathological attempts to “fix” Intensified focus on
the problem that prevents a imagined defects
more reality-based appraisal accompanied by extreme
of the defect self-consciousness
Increased anxiety

19. TREATMENT
CBT Treatments seem most effective
Drug treatments can provide relief for some sufferers
Without treatment, BDD lasts a lifetime

22. - Severe and frightening feelings of detachment
dominate the person’s life
- Causes significant distress or impairment in
functioning, especially emotional expression and
deficits in perception
- Some symptoms are similar to those of panic
disorder
- Rare; onset usually in adolescence

23. TREATMENT
Psychological treatments similar to those for panic disorder may help
Stresses associated with onset or disorder should be addressed
Tends to be lifelong

24. Features the inability to recall personal
information, usually of a stressful and
traumatic nature; adult onset
*Generalized amnesia *Localized or selective
-inability to remember amnesia
anything including -failure to recall specific
identity, comparatively events, usually
rare (lifelong or may traumatic, that occur a
extend from a period in specific period;
the more recent past) frequently occurs in

25. TREATMENT
Usually self-correcting when current life stress is resolved
If needed, therapy focuses on retrieving lost information

27. Features sudden, unexpected travel away
from home, along with an inability to
recall the past
-sometimes with assumption of a new
identity or confusion about an old identity
-fugue states usually end abruptly
-typically adult onset and may continue in
old age

28. TREATMENT
Usually self-correcting when current life stress is resolved
If needed, therapy focuses on retrieving lost information

29. Features altered state of
consciousness in which people
firmly believe they are possessed
by spirits; considered only a
disorder when there is distress
and dysfunction
DSM-5 Proposal:
Diagnose DTD as a subtype of DID

30. - Sudden changes in personality accompany a
trance or possession
- Causes significant distress and/or
impairment in functioning
- Often associated with stress or trauma
- Prevalent worldwide, usually in a religious
context; rare in western cultures
- More common in women than in men

31. Formerly known as multiple
personality disorder; a disorder in
which as many as 100 personalities or
fragments of personalities coexist
within one body and mind

32. - Affected person adopts new identities, or
alters that coexist simultaneously
- Average no. of alters is 15 (*alters: diff.
identities)
- Childhood onset; affects more women than
men
- Rare outside of western culture
- Patients often suffer from other psychological
disorders simultaneously

33. CAUSES Severe abuse during childhood
*Fantasy life is only “escape”
*Practice becomes automatic
and then involuntary
Similar etiology to
High suggestibility a
posttraumatic stress
possible trait
disorder
Biological vulnerability
likely

34. TREATMENT
Long-term psychotherapy may reintegrate separate personalities in 25%
patients
Treatment of associated trauma similar to posttraumatic stress disorder
Lifelong condition without treatment