The Socio-Cultural Environment and Mental Disturbance: Three Minangkabau Case Histories

Abstract

In the course of one year, 10.14% of the new cases treated in the Psychiatric Polyclinic of Djakarta?sCentral Hospital were members of the Minangkabau ethnic group.This percen tage seems rather high since the Minangkabau comprise, roughly, only 2% of DjakartaTs total population, and it suggests that the Minangkabau of Djakarta live in an environment of particu larly high stress and tension.While it is true that mental illness is an individual problem, at the same time, the mentally ill person is also a product of his own society; it has de termined the way he was reared and educated and thus influ enced his psychological development and the formation of his personal values.Society has offered him a choice of social roles and goals and indicated the approved methods of working toward them.Research conducted by psychiatrists, sociologists and anthropologists in the field of Culture and Personality in dicates that various forms of mental disturbance are unequally distributed among the various societies studied.Some socie ties and groups are more prone to particular types of mental disturbances than others.There are even some types of mental disorders which apparently only occur in a few societies.For example, l at ah> characterized by echolalia-repeating the words of other people--and echopraxia--mechanical repetition of the actions of others-is a form of psycho-pathological distur bance found commonly only in Malaya, Indonesia and the Philip pines.2 Specific classes within the same society may also 1.This article is based on a paper,written for the Psychiatric Department of Djakarta's Dr. Tjipto Mangunkusumo Hospital, parts of which were published in Djiwa, 1, No. 2 of Aprif 1968, entitled: "Peranan Faktor-Faktor Sosial-Budaja dalam Gangguan-Gangguan Djiwa pada Orang Minangkabau."The author wishes to thank Dr. Kusumanto Setyonegoro, Head of the Psychiatric Department of the hospital, for his gen erous help relating to the psychiatric side of the investi gation, including permission to interview psychiatric patients in his department and also Dr. J. Banunaek, Head of the Psychiatric Polyclinic,for his invaluable assistance while the author was working at the Polyclinic.The edi tors wish to thank Dr. Banunaek for permission to publish the results of Mrs. Mitchell's research.

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