PAKT 5. OCCIDENTAL DISEASE CATEGOKIES 



NEUROSES, PSYCHOSES, AND NEUROLOGICAL DEFECTS 



The present chapter contains the psychiatric information which 

 was obtained in response to questions regarding the occurrence of 

 classical psychiatric syndromes among the Mohave. The form of the 

 questions explains why, in answering them, the Mohave simply pro- 

 vided descriptions or explanations, but used no Mohave diagnostic 

 labels. 



Although it would have been easy, in some instances, to correlate 

 these data with Mohave clinical entities, it was felt that such a pro- 

 cedure would inextricably mix what the Mohave themselves specif- 

 ically said about certain Mohave disease entities and what, for the 

 best of reasons perhaps, I decided to correlate with those entities. 

 Hence the two sets of data were kept apart. Nothing is lost thereby, 

 since the reader himself will readily correlate psychopathy with dis- 

 orders of the instinct of aggression, manic depressive psychosis either 

 with disturbances of the mood or else with nyevedhi: taharna, etc. 



ANXIETY AND ANXIETY STATES 



Anxiety is one of the key concepts of psychiatry. It is either con- 

 sciously present in neuroses and psychoses, or else it is effectively 

 barred from the field of consciousness by such defense mechanisms as 

 isolation, albeit at great cost in terms of incapacitating symptoms and 

 disorders. In some instances anxiety is detached from its original 

 cause or source and is attached to some less anxiety-arousing item, by 

 means of the defense mechanism of displacement. When the subjec- 

 tive awareness of anxiety is suppressed, e.g., by means of isolation, 

 it can usually be elicited by means of deep psychotherapy. In such 

 instances the patient must be brought to experience anxiety subjec- 

 tively, before the anxiety itself can be dealt with therapeutically. 

 The chief objective of many symptoms is the reduction of anxiety. 



In addition to anxiety as a symptom of various neuroses and psy- 

 choses, there are also two neuroses, called "anxiety state" and "anxiety 

 hysteria," in which the subjective experience and symptom of anxiety 

 plays a dominant role. In other instances anxiety is elicited by situa- 

 tions of stress or else by definite "phobic situations, or objects." In 

 still other instances anxiety attacks occur in a seemingly random man- 



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