Abstract

We believe that the application of a culture–mind– brain perspective to Chinese somatization opens up new possibilities for the study of longstanding questions in cultural psychiatry. There is the potential here to break down the false dichotomy between personal experience and public expression of symptoms. For anthropologists and cultural psychiatrists, who have long argued that the social world does indeed deeply shape personal experience, we suggest specific mechanisms by which this shaping might take place. That said, much of the supportive evidence is indirect. Although the processes and mechanisms we describe are plausible, and grounded in research, we await studies that apply our proposed approach to specific questions. A move toward the multimethod and interdisciplinary work required to systematically pursue culture and mental health research in this way
is the necessary next step.