Abstract
Psychiatrists are taking more interest in what has been termed ‘somatization’ since the time it was realised that depression in non-western peoples do not always follow the classical western pattern (Prince, 1969). In a masterly survey Murphy(1982) has traced the history of depression in Europe and has shown that somatic complaints were the rule in the early days of recognition of this ‘English malady’. Following such current ideas it is now a almost taken for granted that the presence of a number of somatic complaints of a non-organic nature indicates presence of depression. Some symptom complexes like the ‘brain fag syndrome1 (Prince, 1960) or ‘central heat’ (Ifabumuyi, 1981) are being increasingly thought of as equivalents of depression. Though attempt failed to find corroboration of ‘brain fag’ as a syndrome in very similar complaints in Indian patients(‘brain jām’), also ‘burning sensations’ may have different meaning (Chakraborty, 1968 & 1973).
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© 1985 Springer Science+Business Media New York
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Chakraborty, A., Sandel, B. (1985). Somatic Complaint Syndrome in India : Field Study. In: Pichot, P., Berner, P., Wolf, R., Thau, K. (eds) Psychiatry The State of the Art. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4757-1853-9_102
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4757-1853-9_102
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