Abstract
Two psychologists, Dr. Relativist (R) and Dr. Universalist (U), were having a discussion on childhood psychopathology from a cultural perspective. Dr. R’s basic position was that the conceptualization, recognition, and treatment of psychopathology are ultimately rooted in the belief systems of a given culture; and to that extent, psychopathology is culture-specific. On the other hand, Dr. U believed that there are certain features instrinsic to psychopathology which are invariant across cultures and which render it recognizable within any cultural context; hence, psychopathology is a universal. They decided to focus their discussion especially on a contrast between the Chinese and the American perspectives. Their dialogue may be divided into four main sections: (a) childhood psychopathology and its relationship with how childhood and the parent-child relationship are conceptualized in different cultures, with respect to both time and space; (b) issues of culture-specificity versus culture-invariance and the conceptualization of psychopathology in general; (c) the problem of how different psychopathological conditions are differentiated and classified, together with a detailed discussion of hyperactivity and aggression in Chinese and American children; and (d) concluding remarks.
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Ho, D.YF. (1981). Childhood Psychopathology: A Dialogue with Special Reference to Chinese and American Cultures. In: Kleinman, A., Lin, TY. (eds) Normal and Abnormal Behavior in Chinese Culture. Culture, Illness, and Healing, vol 2. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-4986-2_8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-4986-2_8
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