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This article aims to adduce a framework that will allow for the cross-cultural study of panic disorder. The authors take sensation as the key unit of analysis, aiming to contribute to a medical anthropology of sensation. The seven analytic perspectives that are suggested in the article are the following: the full spectrum of panic attack sensations (the sensation body), the biological generation of panic sensations (the biological body), sensation as invoking an ethnophysiology (the ethnophysiological body), sensation as metaphor (the metaphoric body), sensation as invoking the landscape (the landscape body), sensation as invoking catastrophic cognitions (the catastrophic cognitions body), and sensation as invoking memory (the memory-associational body). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Somatic symptoms are a common clinical presentation of distress among ethnic populations in the USA, particularly traumatized refugees. In this article, we apply a 'multiplex model' of bodily experience to explain how a somatic symptom is evoked, amplified, and generates distress, particularly distress related to post-traumatic stress disorder. We illustrate the multiplex model's applicability to acute episodes of tinnitus (i.e., a buzzing-like sound in the ear) among Cambodian refugees, a common symptom in that group. The article demonstrates the importance of carefully examining somatic symptoms and associated meanings in distressed ethnic populations, especially traumatized refugees, and aims to contribute to a medical anthropology of somatic symptoms.

Surveying 60 Vietnamese patients with either current or past post-traumatic stress disorder, this article aims to phenomenologically characterize the syndrome of 'hit by the wind' in a multidimensional manner. This includes determining the patient conceptualization of the disorder, profiling 'hit by the wind' episodes suffered by patients in the previous month, and presenting case vignettes. Eighteen of the 60 patients (30%) suffered at least one episode of 'hit by the wind' in the last month; all 18 patients had at least one episode of 'hit by the wind' in the last month that met panic attack criteria. For the 18 patients, 33 episodes of'hit by the wind' that met panic attack criteria were experienced in the previous month. For these 33 episodes, the most frequently reported DSM-IV panic attack symptoms were chills (100%; 33/33) and dizziness (88%; 29/33). Flashbacks played a role in the 'hit by the wind' episodes for 5 of the 18 patients (28%). In the discussion, a model of how the syndrome of 'hit by the wind' generates panic is adduced; also, possible Chinese origins of the disorder are discussed.