158 chapter
Harding et al. 1980). However, more recent psychiatric research claims that som-
atization is not the more common expression of distress in “developing countries”
(Piccinelli and Simon 1997).
Th e “developed/developing” dichotomy used by cross-cultural psychiatrists
in their research on somatization mirrors the “Western/non-Western” dichot-
omy used by anthropologists in their studies of the body. Psychiatric researchers
use socioeconomic categories whereas anthropologists use cultural diff erence to
divide the world into the somatic and the mental.- Such as Scheper-Hughes and Lock (1987), Csordas (1994) and Strathern (1996:
41–62). - Radhakrishnan and Moore, eds. (1957: 356–385, 602–603).
- With only 4% of India’s population, Kerala had 30% of the allopathic mental
hospitals in India in 1991 (Franke and Chasin 1994:v, citing India Abroad, Dec.
13, 1991, p. 32). Also, Bhattacharyya’s research in Bengal (1986) and Nunley’s
work in Uttar Pradesh (1996) reveal that biomedical psychiatric services in those
regions are not as prevalent as they are in Kerala.