Abstract
Among Mexican-American families, the concept of nervios (nerves) serves as a culturally meaningful illness category for a wide range of conditions, including schizophrenic disorders diagnosed according to psychiatric criteria. This article examines the nature and the meaning of nervios as a notion used by Mexican-American families to understand the schizophrenic illness of a relative. Family descriptions of the condition are presented and the emotional and symbolic meanings of the concept are discussed. The complex and somewhat ambiguous nature of folk conceptions is evidenced not only by variations in the description of nervios but also by the finding that nervios is but one way to view schizophrenic illness. It is suggested that a cultural preference for the term nervios is linked to the efforts of family members to reduce the stigma associated with a mental illness while also reinforcing the strength of family bonds and solidarity by fostering tolerant inclusion of the family member within the home. It is argued that the concept of nervios, and the family emotions that surround this folk label, may mediate the course and outcome of schizophrenic disorder.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Barrett, R. Ceremonies of Clinical Writing: The Documentary Construction of Schizophrenia. Culture, Medicine, & Psychiatry, in press.
Bleuler, M. 1978 The Schizophrenic Disorders: Long-Term Patient and Family Studies. New Haven and London: Yale University Press.
Brown, G. W., J. L. T. Birley, and J. K. Wing 1972 Influence of Family Life on the course of Schizophrenic Disorders: A replication. British Journal of Psychiatry 121: 241–258.
Brown, G. and M. Rutter 1966 The Measurement of Family Activities and Relationships: A methodological study. Human Relations 19: 241–263.
Cuellar, I., L. C. Harris, and R. Jasso 1980 An Acculturation Scale for Mexican American Normal and Clinical Populations. Hispanic Journal of Behavioral Sciences 2(3): 199–217.
Davis, D. L. 1987 Newfoundland Nervosity: Victorian Legacy or Thoroughly Modern Folkway? Medic. Anthrop. in press.
Edgerton, R. B. 1969 On the “Recognition” of Mental Illness. In Changing Perspectives in Mental Illness. S. Plog and R. B. Edgerton, eds., New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.
Edgerton, R. B. 1966 Conceptions of Psychosis in Four East African Societies. American Anthropologist 68: 408–425.
Edgerton, R. B., and M. Karno 1971 Mexican-American Bilingualism and the Perception of Mental Illness. Archives of General Psychiatry 24: 286–290.
Estroff, S. 1982 Long Term Psychiatric Clients in an American Community: Some Sociocultural Factors in Chronic Mental Illness. In Clinically Applied Anthropology: Anthropologists in Health Science Settings. N. J. Chrisman and T. W. Maretzki, eds., Dordrecht, Holland: D. Reidel Publishing Co.
Estroff, S. 1981 Making it Crazy: An Ethnography of Psychiatric Clients in an American Community. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Fabrega, H. 1982 Culture and Psychiatric Illness: Biomedical and Ethnomedical Aspects. In Cultural Conceptions of Mental Health and Therapy. A. Marsella and M. White, eds., Dordrecht, Holland: D. Reidel Publishing Co.
Fabrega, H. 1970 On the Specificity of Folk Illnesses. Southwest Journal of Anthropology 26: 305–314.
Gecas, V. 1976 Self-Conceptions of Migrant and Settled Mexican-Americans. In Chicanos: Social and Psychological Perspectives. C. A. Hernandez, M. J. Haug, and N. N. Wagner, eds., St. Louis: C. V. Mosby Company.
Gilbert, J. M. 1978 Extended Family Integration among Second-Generation Mexican Americans. In Family and Mental Health in the Mexican American Community, J. M. Casas and S. E. Keefe, eds., Los Angeles: Spanish Speaking Resource Center, University of California, Los Angeles.
Good, B. J. 1977 The Heart of What's the Matter: the Semantics of Illness in Iran. Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry 1: 25–58.
Good, B. J., and M. J. Del Vecchio Good 1982 Toward a Meaning-Centered Analysis of Popular Illness Categories: “Fright Illness” and “Heart Distress” in Iran. In Cultural Conceptions of Mental Health and Therapy. A. Marsella and G. White, eds., Dordrecht, Holland: D. Reidel Publishing Co.
Good, B. J., and M. J. Del Vecchio Good 1981 The Meaning of Symptoms: A Cultural Hermeneutic Model for Clinical Practice. In The Relevance of Social Science for Medicine, L. Eisenberg and A. Kleinman, eds., Dordrecht, Holland: D. Reidel Publishing Co.
Gottesman, I. I., and J. Shields 1982 Schizophrenia: The Enigmatic Puzzle. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Guarnaccia, P. 1987Ataques de Nervios: An Idiom of Distress in the Latino Community. Medic. Anthrop., in press.
Henry, J. 1971 Pathways to Madness. New York: Vintage.
Hughes, C. 1985 Culture-Bound or Construct-Bound? The Syndromes and DSM-III. In The Culture-Bound Syndromes: Folk Illnesses of Psychiatric and Anthropological Interest. R. Simons and C. Hughes, eds., Dordrecht, Holland: D. Reidel Publishing Co.
Janzen, J. M. (with the collaboration of W. Arkinstill, M.D.) 1978 The Quest for Therapy in Lower Zaire. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Jenkins, J. H. 1988 Conceptions of Schizophrenia as a Problem of Nerves: A Cross-Cultural Comparison of Mexican-Americans and Anglo-Americans. Social Science and Medicine 26(12): 1233–1244.
Jenkins, J. H., M. Karno, A. de la Selva, F. Santana 1986a Expressed Emotion in Cross-Cultural Context: Familial Responses to Schizophrenic Illness Among Mexican-Americans. Schizophrenia: Family Assessment and Intervention, Springer Verlag.
Jenkins, J. H., M. Karno, A. de la Selva, F. Santana, C. Telles, S. Lopez, and J. Mintz 1986b Expressed Emotion, Maintenance Pharmacotherapy, and Schizophrenic Relapse Among Mexican-Americans. Psychopharmacology Bulletin 22(3):
Karno, M., J. H. Jenkins, A. de la Selva, F. Santana, C. Telles, S. Lopez, and J. Mintz 1987 Expressed Emotion and Schizophrenic Outcome among Mexican-American Families. J. of Nervous and Mental Disease 175(3): 143–151.
Keefe, S. 1979 Urbanization, Acculturation, and Extended Family Ties: Mexican Americans in Cities. American Ethnologist 6: 349–369.
Keefe, S. E., and J. M. Casas 1980 Mexican Americans and Mental Health: A Selected Review and Recommendations for Mental Health Service Delivery. American Journal of Community Psychology 8(3): 303–325.
Kiev, A. 1968 Curanderismo: Mexican-American Folk Psychiatry. New York: Free Press.
Kleinman, A. 1980 Patients and Healers in the Context of Culture: An Exploration of the Borderland between Anthrolopology, Medicine, and Psychiatry. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Kleinman, A. 1977 Rethinking the Social and Cultural Context of Psychopathology and Psychiatric Care. In Renewal in Psychiatry: A Critical Rational Perspective. T. Manschrek and A. Kleinman, eds., Washington, D.C.: Hemisphere Publishing Co.
Kleinman, A. and B. Good 1985 Culture and Depression. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Lin, T. Y., and M. C. Lin 1981 Love, Denial and Rejection: Responses of Chinese Families to Mental Illness. In Normal and Abnormal Behavior in Chinese Culture. A. Kleinman and T.-Y. Lin, eds., Dordrecht, Holland: D. Reidel Publishing Co.
Locke, M. 1982 Popular Conceptions of Mental Health in Japan. In Cultural Conceptions of Mental Health and Therapy. A. Marsella and G. White, eds., Dordrecht, Holland: D. Reidel Publishing Co.
Low, S. 1985 Culturally Interpreted Symptoms or Culture-Bound Syndromes: A Cross-Cultural Review of Nerves. Social Science and Medicine. 21(2): 187–196.
Low, S. 1981 Meaning of Nervios: A Sociocultural Analysis of Symptom Presentation in San Jose, Costa Rica. Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry 5: 25–47.
Lutz, C. 1983 Parental Goals, Enthnopsychology, and the Development of Emotional Meaning. Ethos 11(4): 246–262.
Lutz, C. 1982 The Domain of Emotion Words on Ifaluk. American Ethnologist 9(1): 113–128.
Lutz, C. and G. White 1986 The Anthropology of Emotions. Ann. Rev. Anthropol. 15: 405–36.
Murillo, N. 1976 The Mexican American Family. In Chicanos: Social and Psychological Perspectives. C. A. Hernanadez, M. J. Haug, & N. N. Wagner, eds., St. Louis: The C. V. Mosby Company.
Murphy, J. 1982 Cultural Shaping and Mental Disorders. Deviance and Mental Illness. W. R. Grove, ed., Beverly Hills: Sage Publications.
Murphy, J. 1976 Psychiatric Labeling in Cross-Cultural Perspective. Science 191: 1091–1028.
Myers, F. 1979 Emotions and the Self: A Theory of Personhood and Political Order among Pintupi Aborigines. Ethos 7(4): 343–370.
Newton, F. 1978 The Mexican American Emic System of Mental Illness: An Exploratory Study. In Family and Mental Health in the Mexican American Community, J. M. Casas and S. E. Keefe, eds., Los Angeles: University of California, Los Angeles Spanish Speaking Mental Health Resource Center.
Ramirez, O. and C. Arce 1981 The Contemporary Chicano Family. In Explorations in Chicano Psychology. A. Baron, ed., New York: Praeger Publishers.
Rin, H. and T.-Y. Lin 1962 Mental Illness among Formosan Aborigines as Compared to Chinese in Taiwan. Journal of Mental Science 108: 134–145.
Rogler, L. and A. Hollingshead 1965 Trapped: Families and Schizophrenia. New York: John Wiley and Sons Publishers.
Rosaldo, M. 1984 Toward an Anthropology of Self and Feeling. In Culture Theory: Essays on Mind, Self, and Emotion. R. Shweder and R. LeVine, eds., Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Sartorius, N., A. Japlensky, and R. Shapiro 1978 Cross-Cultural Differences in the Short-Term Prognosis of Schizophrenic Psychosis. Schizophrenia Bulletin 4: 102–113.
Scheper-Hughes, N. 1987 ‘Mental’ in ‘Southie’: Individual, Family, and Community Responses to Psychosis in South Boston. Culture, Medicine, and Psychiatry 11(1): 53–78.
Scheper-Hughes, N. 1979 Saints, Scholars, and Schizophrenics: Mental Illness in Rural Ireland. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Schieffelin, E. 1983 Anger and Shame in the Tropical Forest: On Affect as a Cultural System in Papua New Guinea. Ethos 11(3): 181–191.
Solomon, R. C. 1984 Getting Angry: the Jamesian theory of emotion in anthropology. In Culture Theory: Essays on Mind, Self, and Emotion. R. A. Shweder and R. LeVine, eds., Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Tousignant, M. 1984Pena in the Ecuadorian Sierra: A Psychoanthropological Analysis of Sadness. Culture, Medicine, and Psychiatry 8: 381–398.
Townsend, J. 1978 Cultural Conceptions and Mental Illness. A comparison of Germany and America. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Townsend, J. 1979 Stereotypes of Mental Illness: A Comparison with Ethnic Stereotypes. Culture, Medicine, and Psychiatry 3(3): 205–229.
Vaughn, C. and J. Leff 1976a The Influence of Family and Social Factors on the Course of Psychiatric Illness. British Journal of Psychiatry 129: 125–137.
Vaughn, C. and J. Leff 1976b The Measurement of Expressed Emotion in the Families of Psychiatric Patients. British Journal of Social and clinical Psychology 15: 157–165.
Vaughn, C., K. Snyder, S. Jones, W. Freeman, and I. Falloon 1984 Family Factors in Schizophrenic Relapse: A California replication of the British research on expressed emotion. Archives of General Psychiatry 41: 1169–1177.
Waxler, N. 1974 Culture and Mental Illness: A Social Labeling Perspective. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disorders 159: 379–395.
White, G. 1982 The Ethnographic Study of Cultural Knowledge of “Mental Disorder.” In Cultural Conceptions of Mental Health and Therapy. A. Marsella and G. White, eds., pp. 69–95. Dordrecht, Holland: D. Reidel Publishing Co.
Wynne, L., R. Cromwell, and S. Matthysse 1978 The Nature of Schizophrenia: New Approaches to Research and Treatment. New York: John Wiley and Sons.
World Health Organization 1979 Schizophrenia: An International Follow-up Study. Chichester: John Wiley and Sons.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Jenkins, J.H. Ethnopsychiatric interpretations of schizophrenic illness: The problem of nervios within Mexican-American families. Cult Med Psych 12, 301–329 (1988). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00051972
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00051972