Abstract
Amok — a Malay term referring to homicidal assault — has been reported to the Occidental world by travelers to India and the Malay Archipelago from the 16th century up to today (Norris, 1849; Oxley, 1849; Spores, 1976). Amok (also written “amuk” or “amuck”) has long been known in Malay and Indian folklore as a special type of violent behavior, either common enough or important enough to acquire a specific term for it. Over the last several decades, British physicians in Malaysia and Singapore (Ellis, 1893; Gimlette, 1901; Abraham, 1912; Galloway, 1923) and Dutch physicians in Indonesia (Van Loon, 1926-27; van Wulffton-Palthe, 1933) have described the amok phenomenon in great detail, usually including case histories.
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© 1982 Plenum Press, New York
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Westermeyer, J. (1982). Amok. In: Friedmann, C.T.H., Faguet, R.A. (eds) Extraordinary Disorders of Human Behavior. Critical Issues in Psychiatry. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-9251-8_10
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-9251-8_10
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