Traditional Interpretation and Treatment of Mental Illness in an Arab Psychiatric Clinic

Abstract

Traditional interpretations of beliefs commonly entertained and rituals commonly practiced among a sample of 153 Arab psychiatric patients were studied. Ritual practice associated significantly with illiteracy and with the presence of observable disorders of behaviour. The interpretations-ritual relationship is not, however, of a one-to-one nature. The belief that general physical weakness is the cause of psychogenic symptoms is exposed and its implications for therapy are discussed from the traditional and medicopsychological angles.