7. Europe

Abstract

Based on case histories of patients suffering from endogenous depression and from schizophrenia admitted to an Austrian mental hospital during the last hundred years, LENZ identifies and contrasts basic universal features in these two psychoses with clinical manifestations influenced by Zeitgeist, culture and religion. He supports his view regarding milieu determined variability of some symptoms in these two mental disorders by observations made and differences noted in other cultures. A similar study confined to depressive states, and as far as these are concerned, arriving at similar conclusions has been carried out by LAUTER and SCHÖN at a German University Clinic. HELGASON compared his findings regarding the frequency of mental disorders in Iceland with those previously obtained by Fremming on the island of Bornholm. HENDIN contrasts differences in the frequency of and motivations for suicide in Denmark, Sweden and Norway. BASTIDE and RAVEAU studied problems of acculturation in three categories of French speaking Africans residing in France: long-term students, students who had come for a short period, and married workers. Pentecostal sects, according to KIEV, flourish among West Indian immigrants in Britain. He studied the important role played by these sects in religious healing both of physical and emotional disorders. In a second article, jointly with FRANCIS, he reports three psychiatric cases in members of the Subud sect.