Psychiatric conditions and the institutions and practices that modern society has evolved to handle them originated during the nineteenth century in Anglo European societies. They are products of a historically contingent and culture specific formulation of a class of social problems of behavior that came to the fore in relation to intellectual and political economic changes of those societies. However, such problems have a long ancestry. They are intrinsic to human species and the social and cultural systems that its members have evolved since their emergence. This article reviews intellectual quandaries raised by evolutionary study of psychiatric conditions, those of crossing the human/animal divide and crossing historically contingent cultures; and of framing history of psychiatry in terms of social and cultural evolution. The biological architecture underlying psychiatric conditions and the breakthroughs that indigenous psychiatry of different types of societies underwent in formulating signs and symptoms are discussed.

Keywords:
Psychiatric conditions, Biological evolution, Cultural evolution, History of psychiatry, Cultural psychiatry
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© 2004 S. Karger AG, Basel
2004
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