Transcultural Psychiatry in the Caribbean: Past, Present, and Future
ERIC D. WITTKOWER M.D.1
1 Professor of psychiatry, McGill University, 1266 Pine Ave., West, Montreal 109, Quebec, Canada
The author surveys cultural psychiatric research in the Caribbean Islands. After an ethnographic introduction to the area, he deals with observations concerning the frequency, distribution, and symptomatology of mental disorders, reasons for differences in disorders between the Caribbean and other cultural areas and among Caribbean subcultures, and special problems encountered by psychiatrists practicing or doing research in this area. Disorders of special interest are alcoholism and possession states. The author outlines problems that offer themselves for future research.
