DEFINITION

• Culture-bound syndromes (CBS) are psychological disorders that are intelligible and meaningful only within a specific group’s cultural framework. All humans experience distress, and cultural norms and beliefs shape how symptoms emerge as manifestations of this distress. Culture-specific narrative frameworks of disease influence which symptoms emerge, how the symptoms are interpreted, and how they are treated/responded to. Culture-bound syndromes are not neutral descriptions of internal experience, and can exist only within the social milieu in which they arise.
• Of note, the DSM-5 uses the term "cultural concept of distress" instead of CBS. This includes syndromes/disorders, but also other culture-bound entities such as “idioms of distress” (a way of expressing suffering).