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Pseudoseizures in Social and Cultural ContextPseudoseizures remain a common form of conversion symp tom worldwide, particularly among patients with co-existing epilepsy. This paper reviews current biomedical diagnostic and therapeutic approaches to pseudoseizures. It then com pares the individual-centred psychopathological accounts of pseudoseizures in biomedicine with anthropological accounts of other dissociative phenomena including behaviour in some possession cults. Two cases of pseudoseizures from a Japanese neuropsychiatric hospital illustrate the role of family, social and political-economic factors in chronicity. These examples demonstrate the need for a social perspective in research on pseudoseizures.
Transcultural Psychiatry, Vol. 33, No. 1,
3-32 (1996) |
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