5. Africa

Abstract

COLLOMB, in a new journal devoted to psychopathology in Africa, summarizes data collected by him and his co-workers during eight years of research and clinical work in Senegal (see also Transcultural Psychiatric Research, I, October I964, I23-38; III, April I966, 29-33). The major topics of this article are perception of mental disease, nature of therapeutic techniques, etiology, and forms of mental disorders. In a second article in this journal MARTINO, ZEMPLENI and COLLOMB report the case history of a Senegalese man who killed a sorcerer. The interest of this article rests on the obvious importance of collective represen tations, which are explained in relation to this case history, and which constitute cultural criteria for definitions of mental illness. FORTES' and MAYER's study of the Tallensi of Northern Ghana is well known. Their recent article on psychoses and social change among the Tallensi, although it lacks statistics and clinical deepness, is valuable because it shows with utmost clarity that recent social changes have brought about an increase in the frequency of psychoses among the Tallensi who were supposedly devoid of serious psychological illness before the occurence of social change. Another point of interest is the fact that, contrary to other people of Africa, the Tallensi are one of the few among whom sorcery is not widespread. The psychiatric implications of magic and witchcraft in Liberia are discussed by WINTROB and WITTKOWER. The authors give a description of magic and witchcraft in relation to disease and therapy, and they attempt to demonstrate why magic beliefs are not corrected by reality testing in Africa. There is little psychiatric research being done in Ethiopia. PAVICEVIC'S article on psychoses in this country is therefore of prime importance. It contains a survey of mental disease in Ethiopia and describes a special form of psychi atric disorder known as Zar and characterized by a state of possession.