THE CULTURAL PROBLEM : PSYCHOPATHOLOGY IN TAHITI

This is the third of a series of papers on the psychiatry of the South Pacific. The present study includes all known hospitalized psychiatric cases in French Oceania, together with some historical notes. Cultural factors were of negligible significance at the clinical level. The current emphasis on such factors is interpreted as an attempt to find a successor to such scapegoats as devils, autointoxication, tubercle bacilli, economic conditions, Ietc., as etiological agents in psychiatry. This emphasis is most likely an outcome of the nostalgic illusions of the Golden Age, the Blessed Isle, or the Favored Class, which was or is free of psychiatric disorders. Observations in 30 different countries indicate that the reservoir of psychopathology is of the same order in every large population the world over.