Hostname: page-component-5c6d5d7d68-wp2c8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-08-14T22:42:19.220Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

An indigenous conceptualization of reactive depression in Trinidad

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 July 2009

Roland Littlewood
Roland Littlewood*
Affiliation:
Department of Psychological Medicine, Guy's Hospital, London
*
1Address for correspondence: Dr R. Littlewood, Department of Psychological Medicine, Guy's Hospital, St Thomas Street, London SE1 9RT.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Synopsis

While depressive reactions appear to be universal, until recently they have seldom been described outside Europe, probably because of their lack of exotic salience, but also because they are seldom identified locally as distinct entities. Where it occurs, such an identification reflects a local preference for the articulation of individual psychological notions, rather than universal moral imperatives. While the symptoms of reactive depression are recognized in rural Trinidad as a common experience, but not especially remarked, they are also identified by Afro-Caribbeans as a specific state, Tabanka, following the loss of a sexual partner to another. Tabanka is characterized by lassitude, anorexia, insomnia, feelings of worthlessness, anger, a loss of interest in work and other activities and, especially, by a preoccupation with the faithless one. It is said to be most common among married men and among the upwardly socially mobile, and to lead to heavy drinking and occasionally madness or suicide. The precipitation of Tabanka provokes hilarity rather than moral indignation, and its humour articulates an egalitarian and individualistic working-class attitude to marriage and social mobility. In contrast, Trinidadians of Asian or Venezuelan origin emphasize moral notions of honour and shame.

Type
Research Article
Information
Psychological Medicine , Volume 15 , Issue 2 , May 1985 , pp. 275 - 281
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1985

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Abrahams, R. D. (1983). The Man of Words in the West Indies: Performance and the Emergence of Creole Culture. Johns Hopkins University Press: Baltimore.Google Scholar
Austin, D. J. (1979). History and symbols in ideology: a Jamaican example, Man (new series) 14, 497–514.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Burke, A. W. (1974). Socio-cultural determinants of psychiatric disorder among women in Trinidad and Tobago. West Indian Medical Journal 23, 75–79.Google ScholarPubMed
Cochrane, R. (1977). Mental illness in immigrants to England and Wales; an analysis of mental hospital admissions. Social Psychiatry 12, 25–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Douglas, M. (1968). The social control of cognition: some factors in joke perception, Man (new series) 3, 361–375.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Eastwell, H. D. (1982). Australian Aborigines. Transcultural Psychiatric Research Review 19, 221–247.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fabrega, H. (1974). Problems implicit in the cultural and social study of depression. Psychosomatic Medicine 36, 377–393.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Geertz, C. (1966). Religion as a cultural system. In Anthropological Approaches to Religion (ed. Banton, M.), pp. 1–46. Tavistock: London.Google Scholar
Good, B. J. & Good, M-J. D. (1983). Toward a meaning-centered analysis of popular illness categories. In Cultural Conceptions of Mental Health and Therapy (ed. Marsella, A. J. and White, G. M.), pp. 141–166. D. Reidel: Dordrecht.Google Scholar
Harré, R. (1983). Personal Being: a Theory for Individual Psychology. Blackwell: Oxford.Google Scholar
Howell, S. (1981). Rules not words. In Indigenous Psychologies (ed. Heelas, P. and Lock, A.), pp. 133–144. Academic Press: London.Google Scholar
Jilek, W. E. (1982). Indian Healing. Hancock: Washington.Google Scholar
Katon, W., Kleinman, A. & Rosen, G. (1982). Depression and somatisation:a review. American Journal of Medicine 72, 127–135, 241–246.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Klausner, S. Z. & Foulks, E. F. (1982). Eskimo Capitalists: Oil, Politics and Alcohol. Allanheld and Osmun: New Jersey.Google Scholar
Kleinman, A. (1974). The cognitive structure of traditional medical systems. Ethnomedicine 3, 27–38.Google Scholar
Kleinman, A. (1977). Depression, somatisation and the ‘new cross-cultural psychiatry’. Social Science and Medicine 11, 3–10.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Leff, J. (1981). Psychiatry Around the Globe. Kecker: New York.Google Scholar
Lewis, T. H. (1975). A syndrome of depression and mutism in the Ogala Sioux. American Journal of Psychiatry 132, 753–755.Google Scholar
Littlewood, R. (1984). The individual articulation of shared symbols. Journal of Operational Psychiatry 15, 17–24.Google Scholar
Littlewood, R. & Lipsedge, M. (1982). Aliens and Alienists. Penguin: Harmondsworth.Google Scholar
Littlewood, R. & Lipsedge, M. (1985). Culture-bound syndromes. In Recent Advances in Psychiatry, Volume 5 (ed. Granville-Grossman, K.). Churchill-Livingstone: Edinburgh (in the press).Google Scholar
Marsella, A. J. & White, G. M. (eds.) (1983). Cultural Conceptions of Mental Health and Therapy. D. Reidel: Dordrecht.Google Scholar
Murphy, H. B. M. (1978). The advent of guilt feelings as a common depressive symptom: a historical comparison. Psychiatry 41, 229–242.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Murphy, H. B. M. (1979). Depression, witchcraft beliefs and superego development in preliterate societies. Canadian Journal of Psychiatry 24, 437–449.Google ScholarPubMed
Murphy, H. B. M. (1982). Comparative Psychiatry. Springer: Berlin.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Rodman, H. (1971). Lower-Class Families: the Culture of Poverty in Negro Trinidad. Oxford University Press: New York.Google Scholar
Rubin, V. (1959). Approaches to the study of national characteristics in a multicultural society. International Journal of Social Psychiatry 5, 20–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shore, J. H. & Manson, S. (1983). American Indian psychiatric and social problems. Transcultural Psychiatric Research Review 20, 159–180.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Singer, K. (1975). Depressive disorders from a transcultural perspective. Social Science and Medicine 9, 289–301.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Warner, K. (1982). The Trinidad Calypso. Heinemann: London.Google Scholar
Waxler, N. E. (1977). Is mental illness cured in traditional societies? Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry 1, 233–253.Google ScholarPubMed
Wilson, P. J. (1973). Crab Antics: the Social Anthropology of English Speaking Negro Societies of the Caribbean. Yale University Press: New Haven.Google Scholar