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The experiences ofAtaques de nervios: Towards an anthropology of emotions in Puerto Rico

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Abstract

Ataques de nervios are an idiom of distress used by Puerto Ricans and other Latinos to express dislocations in the social world of the family. This paper contributes to the growing study of the “anthropology of the emotions”. Through detailed interviews with 121 people in Puerto Rico, 78 of whom had had anataque de nervios, we are developing a thick description of both the prototypical models forataques de nervios and the varied individual experiences ofataques. The interview used in this study is a version of the Explanatory Model Interview Catalogue specifically adapted for use in a community study ofataques de nervios in Puerto Rico. Responses to questions on the experience ofataque de nervios were analyzed using a team of reviewers who represented differing knowledge and experience with Puerto Rican culture and mental health practice. The experience ofataques de nervios involves a loss of control in several important domains of experience: emotional expressions, bodily sensations, action dimensions and alterations in consciousness. That loss of control is closely linked to important social contexts relating to major life problems and the experience of suffering.

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Guarnaccia, P.J., Rivera, M., Franco, F. et al. The experiences ofAtaques de nervios: Towards an anthropology of emotions in Puerto Rico. Cult Med Psych 20, 343–367 (1996). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00113824

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