The role of culture in psychosomatic disorders

The paper summarizes and evaluates the work so far carried out on the role of culture in determining similarities and differences in prevalence and manifestations of psychosomatic disorders, and attempts to identify the possible cultural elements that account for such variations. It concludes that the evidence is insufficient to support beliefs about the existence of major differences between cultures in psychosomatic disorders as a whole, and that cultural factors provide but a superficial colouration to a primary core of illness common to all cultures; but that, nevertheless, real differences exist in the prevalence of certain conditions in a minority of cultures.