title: [Culture diseases. Brief review on the way characteristics of today's life affect the ways of mental disease].
abstract: Culture is expressed in the content of psychiatric symptoms. In this paper we try to establish a relationship between the pathoplasticity of some paradigmatic psychiatric disorders and characteristics of values and life styles in developed societies. We argue that some aspects of a marked hedonism hide a dangerous nihilism and they both articulate, in a discrepant way, with opposing responsible hiperrational and hypercompetitive register. Doctrinaire fanaticisms increase markedly in other places in the globe with endemic shortages while solid values lack in the societies of abundance. This affects mental health.
authors.affiliation: Instituto de Psicologia Médica, Faculdade de Medicina de Lisboa.
authors.forename: N F
authors.initials: NF
authors.lastname: da Costa
mesh_terms: D003469:Culture; D007046:Hysteria / Q000523:psychology; D001523:Mental Disorders / Q000523:psychology*; D010684:Philosophy; D011602:Psychophysiologic Disorders; D019966:Substance-Related Disorders / Q000523:psychology
vernacular_title: As doenças da cultura. Pequena memória sobre a forma como as características da vida contemporânea afectam as formas do adoecer mental.