Arthur Kleinman
Encyclopedia
Arthur Kleinman is a prominent American
psychiatrist
and is the Esther and Sidney Rabb Professor of medical anthropology
and cross-cultural psychiatry
at Harvard University
, USA. He is well known for his work on mental illness
in Chinese culture, was the chair of the Harvard Department of Anthropology from 2004-07 and currently serves as the director of Harvard's Asia Center. Kleinman is married to Joan Kleinman, a sinologist at Harvard.
Since 1968, Kleinman has conducted research in Chinese society, first in Taiwan
, and since 1978 in China
, on depression, somatization
, epilepsy
, schizophrenia
and suicide
, and other forms of violence. He has written on the intersection of public health
and international issues as well as social suffering
, on cross-cultural psychiatry, and on the individual experience
of pain
and disability
.
Kleinman has done much to demonstrate that mental distress is much more likely to be expressed as somatized distress (i.e. as a bodily ailment) than as psychological distress by Chinese or East Asian patients. He has also contributed to anthropological and medical understanding of culture-bound syndromes, particularly in Chinese and East Asia
n culture (such as Koro).
In 1976, he founded the journal Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry
, and was its Editor-in-Chief until 1986. The journal was continued by Byron and Mary-Jo Good, and Peter J. Guarnaccia.
Kleinman has co-authored many works with other celebrated psychiatrists and researchers in the field of mental health and cross-cultural psychiatry, including Paul Farmer
, Veena Das
, Margaret Lock, Michael Phillips
, Byron Good, Mary Delvecchio Good, Tsung-yi Lin, and Leon Eisenberg. Perhaps Kleinman's most influential work is Patients and healers in the context of culture (1980), a groundbreaking work of medical anthropology, followed by The Illness Narratives: suffering, healing, and the human condition (1988) and Social origins of distress and disease: depression, neurasthenia, and pain in modern China (1986).
Kleinman is a member of the Institute of Medicine
at the National Academy of Science; and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
. He has delivered numerous lectures on a variety of topics at universities around the world. Most recently, his talks have been on the subject of moral experience. He has been a fellow of the Guggenheim Foundation
and the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences
(Stanford). He was awarded an honorary professorship at Fudan University
. Shortly thereafter, he was Cleveringa Professor at the University of Leiden in the Netherlands
.
He directed the World Mental Health Report, co-chaired the American Psychiatric Association
’s Taskforce on Culture and DSM-IV, co-chaired the 2002 Institute of Medicine
report on Preventing Suicide, and also co-chaired in 2001 and 2002 both the NIH conference on the Science and Ethics of the Placebo and the NIH conference on Stigma. In September 2003, he gave the Distinguished Lecture sponsored by the Fogarty International Center at NIH on the Global Epidemic of Depression and Suicide. He is a consultant to the WHO
where he chaired the technical advisory committee of the Nations for Mental Health Action Program and in December 2002 gave the keynote address to the WHO’s first international conference on global mental health research. He is a winner of the Wellcome Prize of the Royal Anthropological Institute; a recipient of an honorary Doctorate of Science from York University
(Canada); and the 2001 winner of the Franz Boas
Award of the American Anthropological Association
, its highest award. He is a Distinguished Life Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association
. His most recent book, What Really Matters, (Oxford University Press, 2006) addresses existential dangers and uncertainties that make moral experience, religion, and ethics so crucial to individuals and society today. This book has been translated and published in Chinese editions both in Shanghai
and Taipei
.
In September 2003, he co-directed a conference at Harvard on SARS in China; and in the 2003-2004 academic year he co-directed a Conference at Harvard on AIDS
in China. In December 2006, he co-directed an NSF funded international meeting on Asian Flus/Avian Flu
and in May 2007 he co-chaired a conference on Values in Global Health. He is a member of the Steering Committee of Harvard’s Fairbank Center for East Asian Research
, is a member of the Advisory Board of the Harvard-Yenching Institute
, and is on the Steering Committee of Harvard’s newly created China fund. He was also appointed to the Dean’s Advisory Council in Social Sciences. A member of the Steering Committee of the Harvard Institute of Global Health, Kleinman is co-chair of its Committee on Mental Health and of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences Standing Committee on Global Health.
In 2006 Arthur Kleinman received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Society for Medical Anthropology
, and in 2008 received from the SMA the George Foster Award. In 2004, he was awarded the Doubleday Medal in Medical Humanities by University of Manchester
, England
. In 2007 he received an award in the medical humanities at Imperial College, London
. He was also appointed by the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services of the U.S. Government to the Advisory Council of the Fogarty International Center, National Institutes of Health. In 2003 Kleinman chaired the Selection Committee for the NIH’s new Pioneer Awards; and in 2007 he was appointed to the NIH’s Council of Councils.
Arthur Kleinman received his A.B. and M.D. from Stanford University
and M.A. in Social Anthropology
from Harvard. He did an internship in internal medicine at Yale
and his psychiatric residency at the Massachusetts General Hospital
. He has supervised more than 65 Ph.D. students (including 12 M.D.-Ph.D. students), and worked with more than 200 post-doctoral fellows, and he has taught hundreds of medical students and undergraduate students. Kleinman has received more than 50 research grants, and is currently involved in various research projects in China studying depression; stigma; suicide; and the health consequences of rural-urban migration.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
psychiatrist
Psychiatrist
A psychiatrist is a physician who specializes in the diagnosis and treatment of mental disorders. All psychiatrists are trained in diagnostic evaluation and in psychotherapy...
and is the Esther and Sidney Rabb Professor of medical anthropology
Medical anthropology
Medical anthropology is an interdisciplinary field which studies "human health and disease, health care systems, and biocultural adaptation". It views humans from multidimensional and ecological perspectives...
and cross-cultural psychiatry
Cross-cultural psychiatry
Cross-cultural psychiatry or transcultural psychiatry is a branch of psychiatry concerned with the cultural and ethnic context of mental disorders and psychiatric services...
at Harvard University
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
, USA. He is well known for his work on mental illness
Mental illness
A mental disorder or mental illness is a psychological or behavioral pattern generally associated with subjective distress or disability that occurs in an individual, and which is not a part of normal development or culture. Such a disorder may consist of a combination of affective, behavioural,...
in Chinese culture, was the chair of the Harvard Department of Anthropology from 2004-07 and currently serves as the director of Harvard's Asia Center. Kleinman is married to Joan Kleinman, a sinologist at Harvard.
Since 1968, Kleinman has conducted research in Chinese society, first in Taiwan
Taiwan
Taiwan , also known, especially in the past, as Formosa , is the largest island of the same-named island group of East Asia in the western Pacific Ocean and located off the southeastern coast of mainland China. The island forms over 99% of the current territory of the Republic of China following...
, and since 1978 in China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
, on depression, somatization
Somatization
Somatization is currently defined as "a tendency to experience and communicate somatic distress in response to psychosocial stress and to seek medical help for it".This can be, but not always, related to a psychological condition:...
, epilepsy
Epilepsy
Epilepsy is a common chronic neurological disorder characterized by seizures. These seizures are transient signs and/or symptoms of abnormal, excessive or hypersynchronous neuronal activity in the brain.About 50 million people worldwide have epilepsy, and nearly two out of every three new cases...
, schizophrenia
Schizophrenia
Schizophrenia is a mental disorder characterized by a disintegration of thought processes and of emotional responsiveness. It most commonly manifests itself as auditory hallucinations, paranoid or bizarre delusions, or disorganized speech and thinking, and it is accompanied by significant social...
and suicide
Suicide
Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Suicide is often committed out of despair or attributed to some underlying mental disorder, such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism, or drug abuse...
, and other forms of violence. He has written on the intersection of public health
Public health
Public health is "the science and art of preventing disease, prolonging life and promoting health through the organized efforts and informed choices of society, organizations, public and private, communities and individuals" . It is concerned with threats to health based on population health...
and international issues as well as social suffering
Suffering
Suffering, or pain in a broad sense, is an individual's basic affective experience of unpleasantness and aversion associated with harm or threat of harm. Suffering may be qualified as physical or mental. It may come in all degrees of intensity, from mild to intolerable. Factors of duration and...
, on cross-cultural psychiatry, and on the individual experience
Experience
Experience as a general concept comprises knowledge of or skill in or observation of some thing or some event gained through involvement in or exposure to that thing or event....
of pain
Pain
Pain is an unpleasant sensation often caused by intense or damaging stimuli such as stubbing a toe, burning a finger, putting iodine on a cut, and bumping the "funny bone."...
and disability
Disability
A disability may be physical, cognitive, mental, sensory, emotional, developmental or some combination of these.Many people would rather be referred to as a person with a disability instead of handicapped...
.
Kleinman has done much to demonstrate that mental distress is much more likely to be expressed as somatized distress (i.e. as a bodily ailment) than as psychological distress by Chinese or East Asian patients. He has also contributed to anthropological and medical understanding of culture-bound syndromes, particularly in Chinese and East Asia
East Asia
East Asia or Eastern Asia is a subregion of Asia that can be defined in either geographical or cultural terms...
n culture (such as Koro).
In 1976, he founded the journal Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry
Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry
Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry is a cross-cultural medical journal founded in 1976 by Arthur Kleinman who was Editor-in-Chief until 1986. The journal was continued by Byron and Mary-Jo Good, and Peter J...
, and was its Editor-in-Chief until 1986. The journal was continued by Byron and Mary-Jo Good, and Peter J. Guarnaccia.
Kleinman has co-authored many works with other celebrated psychiatrists and researchers in the field of mental health and cross-cultural psychiatry, including Paul Farmer
Paul Farmer
Dr. Paul Edward Farmer is an American anthropologist and physician. He is currently the Kolokotrones University Professor at Harvard University, formerly the Presley Professor of Medical Anthropology in the Department of Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School, an attending physician and Chief...
, Veena Das
Veena Das
Veena Das is Krieger-Eisenhower Professor of Anthropology at the Johns Hopkins University. She also serves on the Executive Board of the Institute of Socio-Economic Research on Development and Democracy in India. She studied at the Indraprastha College for Women and Delhi School of Economics at...
, Margaret Lock, Michael Phillips
Michael Phillips (psychiatrist)
Michael Phillips is a prominent Canadian psychiatrist known for his work in mental illness and suicide prevention. He resides in Shanghai, China.-References:* http://mbhs.bergtraum.k12.ny.us/cybereng/nyt/china-female-suicide.htm...
, Byron Good, Mary Delvecchio Good, Tsung-yi Lin, and Leon Eisenberg. Perhaps Kleinman's most influential work is Patients and healers in the context of culture (1980), a groundbreaking work of medical anthropology, followed by The Illness Narratives: suffering, healing, and the human condition (1988) and Social origins of distress and disease: depression, neurasthenia, and pain in modern China (1986).
Kleinman is a member of the Institute of Medicine
Institute of Medicine
The Institute of Medicine is a not-for-profit, non-governmental American organization founded in 1970, under the congressional charter of the National Academy of Sciences...
at the National Academy of Science; and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
American Academy of Arts and Sciences
The American Academy of Arts and Sciences is an independent policy research center that conducts multidisciplinary studies of complex and emerging problems. The Academy’s elected members are leaders in the academic disciplines, the arts, business, and public affairs.James Bowdoin, John Adams, and...
. He has delivered numerous lectures on a variety of topics at universities around the world. Most recently, his talks have been on the subject of moral experience. He has been a fellow of the Guggenheim Foundation
John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation
The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation was founded in 1925 by Mr. and Mrs. Simon Guggenheim in memory of their son, who died April 26, 1922...
and the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences
Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences
The Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences is an American interdisciplinary research body in Stanford, California focusing on the social sciences and humanities . Fellows are elected in a closed process, to spend a period of residence at the Center, released from other duties...
(Stanford). He was awarded an honorary professorship at Fudan University
Fudan University
Fudan University , located in Shanghai, is one of the oldest and most selective universities in China, and is a member of the C9 League. Its institutional predecessor was founded in 1905, shortly before the end of China's imperial Qing dynasty...
. Shortly thereafter, he was Cleveringa Professor at the University of Leiden in the Netherlands
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
.
He directed the World Mental Health Report, co-chaired the American Psychiatric Association
American Psychiatric Association
The American Psychiatric Association is the main professional organization of psychiatrists and trainee psychiatrists in the United States, and the most influential worldwide. Its some 38,000 members are mainly American but some are international...
’s Taskforce on Culture and DSM-IV, co-chaired the 2002 Institute of Medicine
Institute of Medicine
The Institute of Medicine is a not-for-profit, non-governmental American organization founded in 1970, under the congressional charter of the National Academy of Sciences...
report on Preventing Suicide, and also co-chaired in 2001 and 2002 both the NIH conference on the Science and Ethics of the Placebo and the NIH conference on Stigma. In September 2003, he gave the Distinguished Lecture sponsored by the Fogarty International Center at NIH on the Global Epidemic of Depression and Suicide. He is a consultant to the WHO
Who
Who may refer to:* Who , an English-language pronoun* who , a Unix command* Who?, one of the Five Ws in journalism- Art and entertainment :* Who? , a 1958 novel by Algis Budrys...
where he chaired the technical advisory committee of the Nations for Mental Health Action Program and in December 2002 gave the keynote address to the WHO’s first international conference on global mental health research. He is a winner of the Wellcome Prize of the Royal Anthropological Institute; a recipient of an honorary Doctorate of Science from York University
York University
York University is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is Canada's third-largest university, Ontario's second-largest graduate school, and Canada's leading interdisciplinary university....
(Canada); and the 2001 winner of the Franz Boas
Franz Boas
Franz Boas was a German-American anthropologist and a pioneer of modern anthropology who has been called the "Father of American Anthropology" and "the Father of Modern Anthropology." Like many such pioneers, he trained in other disciplines; he received his doctorate in physics, and did...
Award of the American Anthropological Association
American Anthropological Association
The American Anthropological Association is a professional organization of scholars and practitioners in the field of anthropology. With 11,000 members, the Arlington, Virginia based association includes archaeologists, cultural anthropologists, biological anthropologists, linguistic...
, its highest award. He is a Distinguished Life Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association
American Psychiatric Association
The American Psychiatric Association is the main professional organization of psychiatrists and trainee psychiatrists in the United States, and the most influential worldwide. Its some 38,000 members are mainly American but some are international...
. His most recent book, What Really Matters, (Oxford University Press, 2006) addresses existential dangers and uncertainties that make moral experience, religion, and ethics so crucial to individuals and society today. This book has been translated and published in Chinese editions both in Shanghai
Shanghai
Shanghai is the largest city by population in China and the largest city proper in the world. It is one of the four province-level municipalities in the People's Republic of China, with a total population of over 23 million as of 2010...
and Taipei
Taipei
Taipei City is the capital of the Republic of China and the central city of the largest metropolitan area of Taiwan. Situated at the northern tip of the island, Taipei is located on the Tamsui River, and is about 25 km southwest of Keelung, its port on the Pacific Ocean...
.
In September 2003, he co-directed a conference at Harvard on SARS in China; and in the 2003-2004 academic year he co-directed a Conference at Harvard on AIDS
AIDS
Acquired immune deficiency syndrome or acquired immunodeficiency syndrome is a disease of the human immune system caused by the human immunodeficiency virus...
in China. In December 2006, he co-directed an NSF funded international meeting on Asian Flus/Avian Flu
Avian flu
Avian influenza, sometimes avian flu, and commonly bird flu, refers to "influenza caused by viruses adapted to birds." Of the greatest concern is highly pathogenic avian influenza ....
and in May 2007 he co-chaired a conference on Values in Global Health. He is a member of the Steering Committee of Harvard’s Fairbank Center for East Asian Research
Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies
The Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies at Harvard University is a post-graduate research center promoting the study of modern and contemporary China from a social science perspective. -History:...
, is a member of the Advisory Board of the Harvard-Yenching Institute
Harvard-Yenching Institute
Harvard-Yenching Institute is an independent foundation dedicated to advancing higher education in Asia in the humanities and social sciences, with special attention to the study of Asian culture...
, and is on the Steering Committee of Harvard’s newly created China fund. He was also appointed to the Dean’s Advisory Council in Social Sciences. A member of the Steering Committee of the Harvard Institute of Global Health, Kleinman is co-chair of its Committee on Mental Health and of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences Standing Committee on Global Health.
In 2006 Arthur Kleinman received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Society for Medical Anthropology
Society for Medical Anthropology
The Organization of Medical Anthropology was formed in 1967 and first met on April 27, 1968, at the 27th Annual Meeting of the Society for Applied Anthropology , during which the Medical Anthropology Newsletter was conceived and first published in October 1968 with 53 subscribers...
, and in 2008 received from the SMA the George Foster Award. In 2004, he was awarded the Doubleday Medal in Medical Humanities by University of Manchester
University of Manchester
The University of Manchester is a public research university located in Manchester, United Kingdom. It is a "red brick" university and a member of the Russell Group of research-intensive British universities and the N8 Group...
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
. In 2007 he received an award in the medical humanities at Imperial College, London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
. He was also appointed by the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services of the U.S. Government to the Advisory Council of the Fogarty International Center, National Institutes of Health. In 2003 Kleinman chaired the Selection Committee for the NIH’s new Pioneer Awards; and in 2007 he was appointed to the NIH’s Council of Councils.
Arthur Kleinman received his A.B. and M.D. from Stanford University
Stanford University
The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...
and M.A. in Social Anthropology
Social anthropology
Social Anthropology is one of the four or five branches of anthropology that studies how contemporary human beings behave in social groups. Practitioners of social anthropology investigate, often through long-term, intensive field studies , the social organization of a particular person: customs,...
from Harvard. He did an internship in internal medicine at Yale
YALE
RapidMiner, formerly YALE , is an environment for machine learning, data mining, text mining, predictive analytics, and business analytics. It is used for research, education, training, rapid prototyping, application development, and industrial applications...
and his psychiatric residency at the Massachusetts General Hospital
Massachusetts General Hospital
Massachusetts General Hospital is a teaching hospital and biomedical research facility in the West End neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts...
. He has supervised more than 65 Ph.D. students (including 12 M.D.-Ph.D. students), and worked with more than 200 post-doctoral fellows, and he has taught hundreds of medical students and undergraduate students. Kleinman has received more than 50 research grants, and is currently involved in various research projects in China studying depression; stigma; suicide; and the health consequences of rural-urban migration.
Selected list of published works
- Medicine in Chinese cultures : comparative studies of health care in Chinese and other societies: papers and discussions from a conference held in Seattle, Washington, U.S.A., February 1974 / edited by Arthur Kleinman ... [et al.]. -- U.S. Dept. of Health, Education, and Welfare , Public Health Service, National Institutes of Health, 1975.
- Culture and healing in Asian societies : anthropological, psychiatric, and public health studies / edited by Arthur Kleinman ... [et al.]. - - G.K. Hall, 1978
- Normal and abnormal behavior in Chinese culture / edited by Arthur Kleinman and Tsung-yi Lin. -- D. Reidel, 1981. -- (Culture, illness, and healing / editor-in-chief, Arthur Kleinman ; v. 2)
- Patients and healers in the context of culture : an exploration of the borderland between anthropology, medicine, and psychiatry / Arthur Kleinman. -- University of California Press, 1980.
- Culture and depression : studies in the anthropology and cross-cultura l psychiatry of affect and disorder / edited by Arthur Kleinman and Byron Good. -- University of California Press, 1985. --
- Social origins of distress and disease : depression, neurasthenia, and pain in modern China / Kleinman -- Yale Univ ersity Press, 1986
- The illness narratives: suffering, healing, and the human condition / Kleinman -- Basic Books, 1988
- Rethinking psychiatry : from cultural category to personal experience / Kleinman ; Free Press, 1991 ISBN 0-02-917441-4
- Social suffering / edited by Kleinman, Veena Das, and Margaret Lock -- University of California Press, 1997 & Oxford University Press, 1997
- Writing at the margin : discourse between anthropology and medicine / Kleinman. -- University of California Press, 1995
- What really matters: living a moral life amidst uncertainty and danger / Kleinman -- Oxford University Press, 2006. Translated into Chinese: Shanghai Joint Publishing Company, Shanghai, P.R. China, 2007; translated in Chinese: PsyGarden Publishing Company, Taiwan, 2007