[Non verbal approach in transcultural psychiatry (author's transl)]

The author reports his one year experience of psychiatry in People Republic of Congo (Brazzaville). It lead him to a new regard on his own culture with a final reinforcement of it and to the feeling that, whatever his good will, he will never completely understand the mental processes and the myths of this african patients. The cultural environment induces specific features of african mental illness. The western psychiatrist must discard almost all attempts of verbal communication and must relie on somatic expression and ritual practices to create conditions allowing use of modern chemical treatments.