Culture and Panic Disorder

Psychiatric classifications created in one culture may not be as universal as we assume, and it is difficult to determine the validity of a classification even in the culture in which it was created. "Culture and Panic Disorder" explores how the psychiatric classification of panic disorder first emerged, how medical theories of this disorder have shifted through time, and whether or not panic disorder can actually be diagnosed across cultures. In this breakthrough volume a distinguished group of medical and psychological anthropologists, psychiatrists, psychologists, and historians of science provide ethnographic insights as they investigate the presentation and generation of panic disorder in various cultures. The first available work with a focus on the historical and cross-cultural aspects of panic disorders, this book presents a fresh opportunity to reevaluate Western theories of panic that were formerly taken for granted.

Reviews:
"Is panic disorder a universal syndrome, invariant across time and culture? Or is it an idiom of distress, confined chiefly to contemporary postindustrial civilization? Using the methods of psychiatry, anthropology, and history, contributors to Culture and Panic Disorder show that neither of these stark alternatives captures the full truth about panic. This superb book contains cutting-edge empirical and conceptual analyses that reveal what is universal about panic and what is shaped by culture." - Richard J. McNally, Harvard University, author of Panic Disorder: A Critical Analysis"

Author Biography:
Devon E. Hinton is a psychiatrist and medical anthropologist, and is Associate Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital. Byron J. Good is Professor of Medical Anthropology in the Department of Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School.

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