Maladi moun (literally "humanly caused illness," also referred to as "sent sickness”) is a ders. In this explanatory model, interpersonal envy and malice cause people to harm their enemies by sending illnesses such as psychosis, depression, social or academic failure, and inability to perform activities of daily living. The etiological model assumes that illness may be caused by others' envy and hatred, provoked by the victim’s economic success as evidenced by a new job or expensive purchase. One person’s gain is assumed to produce another person’s loss, so visible success makes one vulnerable to attack. Assigning the la- bel of sent sickness depends on mode of onset and social status more than presenting symptoms. The acute onset of new symptoms or an abrupt behavioral change raises sus- picions of a spiritual attack. Someone who is attractive, intelligent, or wealthy is perceived as especially vuhierable, and even young healthy children are at risk.
Related conditions in other cultural contexts: Concerns about illness (typically, phys- ical illness) caused by envy or social conﬂict are common across cultures and often ex- pressed in the form of ”evil eye” (e.g. in Spanish, mal de ojo, in Italian, mul’occhiu).
Related conditions in DSM-S: Delusional disorder, persecutory type; schizophrenia with paranoid features.
Nervios (“nerves”) is a common idiom of distress among Latinos in the United States and
Latin America. Nervios refers to a general state of vulnerability to stressful life experiences and to difficult life circumstances. The term nervios includes a wide range of symptoms of emotional distress, somatic disturbance, and inability to function. The most common symptoms attributed to nervios include headaches and “brain aches” (occipital neck ten- sion), irritability, stomach disturbances, sleep difficulties, nervousness, easy tearfulness, inability to concentrate, trembling, tingling sensations, and mareos (dizziness with occa- sional vertigo-like exacerbations). Nervios is a broad idiom of distress that spans the range of severity from cases with no mental disorder to presentations resembling adjustment, anxiety, depressive, dissociative, somatic symptom, or psychotic disorders. “Being ner- vous since childhood” appears to be more of a trait and may precede social anxiety disor- der, while ”being ill with nerves” is more related than other forms of nervios to psychiatric problems, especially dissociation and depression.
Related conditions in other cultural contexts: Nevra among Greeks in North America, nierbi among Sicilians in North America, and nerves among whites in Appalachia and
Newfoundland.
Related conditions in DSM-5: Major depressive disorder, peristent depressive disor- der (dysthymia), generalized anxiety disorder, social anxiety disorder, other specified or unspecified dissociative disorder, somatic symptom disorder, schizophrenia.
Shenjz'ng shuairuo (”weakness of the nervous system” in Mandarin Chinese) is a cultural syndrome that integrates conceptual categories of traditional Chinese medicine with the 836 Glossary of Cultural Concepts of Distress