Culture defines the way by which a given society or group of people behavior (psychological and physical) is perceived.
Culture to a very great extent influences the way we behave, thinking pattern, and perception as well as management and treatment of disorders like depression. As a matter of fact, I am going to focus on the role of culture comparing the African culture and the Western countries like the United States and Europe.
I want to first of all say that African culture which practices a collectivity’s culture has never had anything like depression and it has never existed in its medical lexicon if any at all. Depression is just a mental picture formed and placed in the mind of the common African man, overtime this picture begin to manifest and cause some intra psyche conflict within the individual. We all know anything the mind grasps, it never let go so easily rather it recreate the picture to either fit or cause some psychological problems.
Looking at the structure of the African cultures, whether the Ibos, Fulani, Dahome, Hausas, Yoruba, the Efik, the Bahumono, the Ijaws and many others, you will discover a common practice that centers on group concern, hospitality, group thinking, extended families, communal concern, a high level of oneness. A cultural pattern that respect and value the effort and well-being of others, hardly can any individual be left in isolation.
The Western culture on the other hand, focuses on individualism, a system that isolate an individual at a very tender age, and a system that make people more self centered, egocentric and less concern toward the need of others. This culture gives room to loneliness, sadness and even evil thoughts. That is why people are easily subjected to committing suicide, this is because the thought of suicide is a recurrent negative thought that often come and go. When there is nobody around to share your feelings and emotions, when there is nobody to talk to, the last resort usually is suicide. These set of people see suicide as an alternative to prevent further pain and suffering.
Another important factor to consider is the psychological attachment to materialism. The African culture has never had any phenomenon on materialism rather places much value on brotherhood and concern for life. An average African will be the least person to take his life in the midst of poverty and/or hardship, to them life is so precious to be taken at the slight provocation or frustration. The fear of failure has never been attached any such stigma. Hence, any African person was ready to fail and still be optimistic. The case is usually different with the developed countries, with the advancement in the diagnosis and treatment of depression, it still remain the number one cause of untimely death and planned suicide. This is because the term “suicide” has been oversimplified to even cause a psychological trauma at the hearing of such explanation.
Any culture that rely so much of natural medication and food do not suffer depression rather this natural medication and food supplements provide basic body defense that not only prevent but also treat disorders like depression. The Western countries have a different situation, where about 60-70% of it food come from processed food, junk food and its source of medication from artificial substances called “DRUG”. A substance with a potential adverse effect on the individual and even caused more complicated condition for depressed victims.
It is very unfortunate, to see more problems arising from the use of chemotherapy, despite their progress, many more damages have continue to increase as a result of adverse drugs effects, a concern that has prompted psychopathologists to view it as an era of increase in abnormal behavior mostly among the growing teens.
However, it is important to note that depression is now real and has come to stay but the relevant of culture to the identification and treatment of depression cannot be neglected or overemphasize. The truth is this, the Africa culture places more emphasis on spiritual explanation of most disorders, attributing causes to witches and wizard mostly when it gets to the point of suicide and death. This because an average African person valued life so much that, no individual can take it by force unless under external influence.
Record has it that collectivist culture comprises about 70% of the world population and have lower rate of crime, alcoholism, suicide and other related depressive conditions than do individualist culture like the Europe and North America where the rate of organise crime has doubled in recent time due to drug abuse, alcoholism and other forms of crime.
In my interview with some people on the death of Gary Speed, almost 80% attributed the cause to demonic powers. One told me, we are in the end-time, I should not be surprised, Gary Speed may be richer than a local government in Nigeria, he has got a name for himself, and has lived like any other person except that inside him there was a vacuum of loniness and frustration which nobody was there to fill this space with joy and happiness. The African culture would not allow that to happen to him because his extended and immediate family as well as close relatives will always be there for him.
