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Resumo

This article is a descriptive, person-centered ethnographic account of how villagers on a remote, small Indonesian island responded to and interpreted the behavior of a young man they labeled insane. Many local efforts to diagnose the illness, strategies for treatment and the prognosis for recovery were contested among the islanders. The villagers and the mentally ill person alike adhered to culturally prescribed models when they interacted and when they sought to assess what was happening. Although observable traits of severe malfunctioning show a wide cross-cultural distribution, cultural models and practices shape the social response to psychotic behavior.

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