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This study reports on the findings from a WHO sponsored cross-national investigation of life events and schizophrenia. Data are presented from a series of 386 acutely ill schizophrenic patients selected from nine field research centers located in developing and developed countries (Aarhus, Denmark; Agra, India; Cali, Colombia; Chandigarh, India; Honolulu, USA; Ibadan, Nigeria; Nagasaki, Japan; Prague, Czechoslovakia; Rochester, USA). On a methodological level, the study demonstrates that life event methodologies originating in the developed countries can be adapted for international studies and may be used to collect reasonably reliable and comparable cross-cultural data on psychosocial factors affecting the course of schizophrenic disorders. Substantive findings replicate the results of prior studies which conclude that socioenvironmental stressors may precipitate schizophrenic attacks and such events tend to cluster in the two to three week period immediately preceding illness onset. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The literature of the past two decades on Japanese-American culture, behavior, and mental health services and issues is reviewed. Counseling and psychotherapy with these clients are then discussed, taking into account traditional Japanese cultural values, with particular emphasis on verbal and nonverbal factors affecting therapeutic approaches and communication.

Investigated the relationship between real-ideal self-concept discrepancy and depression among different generations and age groups of Japanese-American women in Hawaii. In contrast to the numerous results with Caucasian Ss, the present findings revealed that self-concept discrepancy and depression are related positively for certain generations (i.e., Nisel, young Sansei), but not others (i.e., old Sansei, Yonsei). It was speculated that the differences were due to acculturative and historical experiences that mediated personality pattern development. The findings also point out the ethnocentricity of one of the most supported notions in Western psychology (i.e., the relationship between self-concept discrepancy and maladjustment).