CULTURE, PERSONALITY, AND PSYCHOPATHOLOGY

Culture needs to be made more central to the understanding of personal ity and psychopathology. New anthropological views describe cultural i nfluences on personality and psychopathology by focusing on the effect of social change in local contexts on sociosomatic and sociopsycholog ical processes. This view discloses the cultural biases built into dom inant North American professional models of diagnosis and contrasts wi th past uses of culture in cross-cultural research. Examples from Chin ese and Puerto Rican societies illustrate how indigenous interpersonal models of personality and psychopathology that focus on social proces ses can augment the cross-cultural validity of clinical formulations.