4. Africa

Abstract

Psychiatric Disorder among the Yoruba by A. LEIGHTON and his associates demon strates that Western epidemiological techniques for the study of psychiatric disorder are adaptable to a non-literate African population. According to this pilot study, the prevalence and pattern of disorder among the Yoruba are not very different from those of a previously studied rural Nova Scotia popula tion. (This book will be reviewed from the anthropological viewpoint in the next issue of Transcultural Psychiatric Research.) In one of the few psychoanalytic studies dealing with an African group, Die Weissen Denken Zuviel, PARIN and his coworkers describe the application of a modified psychoanalytic technique to the Dogon of West Africa. The personality structure of the Dogon differs from that of Western people in several respects, e.g. in the type of ego-defense mechanism favored, in the predominance of identificatory relationships, and in the heightened importance of human relationships in general. JAKOVLJEVIG describes the type of psychiatric disorders he observed during his two and a half years as government psychiatrist in African Guinea. The general picture of mental health needs and services in Liberia, West Africa, is presented by HERTZ. He points out that an increasingly less tolerant attitude towards psychosis on the part of the Liberian family may necessitate increased psychiatric facilities in the future. PAYET and his group point out that gastro duodenal ulcers are not uncommon in African negroes. They conclude from their studies that similar psychological factors operate in the production of ulcers in Africa and Europe.