7. North America

Abstract

The significance of social class is often stressed in relation to mental disease. In a study of German and Polish patients living in the United States, E. B. PIEDMONT found that ethnicity is more significant in regard to schizophrenic development than social class. Rates of mental illness are usually based on patients treated in psychiatric institutaons. J. G. BRUHN et al. show that cultural differences between communities must be taken into account when interpreting such rates. In a richly condensed publication, W. MADSEN summarizes beliefs, attitudes and practices in the field of disease, therapy and witchcraft found among the Mexican-Americans of South Texas. There follows a brief bibliographical review by T. J. BOAG of mental health problems among native and white groups in the Arctic. P. SINGER describes an attempt at group therapy with students recently arrived in the U.S. from India, and points out some specific problems which the Hindu tradition poses for such patients. In a fascinating sum mary of a case history of a patient with the 'mono-symptomatic' schizophrenic compulsion of hamburger hoarding, W. M. BOLMAN and A. S. KATZ analyze their data in comparison with descriptive accounts of the cannibalistic 'whitico' psychosis among Algonkian Indians of the Hudson Bay area of Canada.