The reflection of acculturation in psychiatric symptomatology: a study of an Israeli child guidance clinic population

Abstract

Within a pool of Israeli child guidance clinic cases, discrete psychiatric symptoms and more inclusive symptom groupings were investigated in subgroups based on children's and their parents' birthplaces. In particular, Israeli children born in Europe were compared with their peers of the same sex and parentage born in Israel. A set of analogous comparisons was completed with children of Afro-Asian descent. Two predictions were formulated and tested: 1. Patients of European birth would predominantly manifest symptoms expressed through thought and directed against self, as compared with children of European parentage and Israeli birth, and 2. Patients born in Afro-Asian countries would exhibit a predominance of symptoms channeled into action and directed against others, as compared with Israeli-born children of comparable ethnic extraction. Partial support was obtained for the first prediction in that European-born boys exceeded Israeli-born boys of European-parentage in the category of thought symptoms. Contrary to the same prediction, the role of turning against self failed to differentiate these two groups. No support for the second prediction emerged upon the comparison of Israeli-born and foreign-born children of Afro-Asian extraction. Upon integrating these findings with several additional, but not predicted, intergroup differences in categories and discrete manifestations of symptomatology the conclusion was reached that both European and AfroAsian groups born in Israel were showing tendencies toward deemphasis on thought and turning against others and toward emphasis en affect expression. The Afro-Asian subjects, however, were exhibiting these trends to a weaker degree. The differences between native and foreign-born groups from the two regions of descent were tentatively explained as approximations, on the plane of psychopathology, the characteristics of pragmatism, acceptance of responsibility, and spontaneity that are fostered in the contemporary Israeli culture.