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Define culture-bound syndrome and provide examples from the text and lectures.

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Final answer:

Culture-bound syndromes are mental health conditions specific to cultural contexts, with examples including susto in Latino communities and anorexia nervosa in the United States and Europe. They convey how cultures conceptualize and communicate distress, as explored in idioms of distress and cultural concepts of distress (CCD).

Step-by-step explanation:

Culture-bound syndromes are mental health conditions that are recognized within specific cultural contexts. They are expressions of distress that reveal how a society conceptualizes and reacts to personal suffering in ways not widely recognized outside of that culture.

An example of a culture-bound syndrome is susto, found in Latino societies, characterized by severe anxiety, restlessness, and fear due to traumatic events. It illustrates how social and spiritual interpretations are meshed in the understanding of a person's distress. Meanwhile, anorexia nervosa in the United States and Europe is a prime example of a culture-bound syndrome that reflects the culture's beauty and weight standards.

Idioms of distress like the evil eye or tying a yellow ribbon represent cultural ways of expressing and acknowledging distress. The cultural systems model, causal attributions, and cultural concepts of distress (CCD), as detailed in the DSM-5, further provide a framework to understand this phenomenon.

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