Ronald C. Simons (born June 25, 1935) is a

psychiatrist A psychiatrist is a physician who specializes in psychiatry, the branch of medicine devoted to the diagnosis, prevention, study, and treatment of mental disorders. Psychiatrists are physicians and evaluate patients to determine whether their sy ...

and

anthropologist An anthropologist is a person engaged in the practice of anthropology. Anthropology is the study of aspects of humans within past and present societies. Social anthropology, cultural anthropology and philosophical anthropology study the norms and ...

best known for his work on

latah Latah is a condition in which abnormal behaviors result from a person experiencing a sudden shock or other external stressor almost exclusively having been observed in persons from Southeast Asia. When induced, the affected person typically engag ...

, a

culture-bound syndrome In medicine and medical anthropology, a culture-bound syndrome, culture-specific syndrome, or folk illness is a combination of psychiatric and somatic symptoms that are considered to be a recognizable disease only within a specific society or cu ...

found predominantly in

Malaysia Malaysia ( ; ) is a country in Southeast Asia. The federation, federal constitutional monarchy consists of States and federal territories of Malaysia, thirteen states and three federal territories, separated by the South China Sea into two r ...

and

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guine ...

. He has written on culture-bound syndromes more generally. He is professor of psychiatry and adjunct professor of anthropology at

Michigan State University Michigan State University (Michigan State, MSU) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in East Lansing, Michigan. It was founded in 1855 as the Agricultural College of the State of Michigan, the fi ...

in East Lansing, Michigan. His short documentary film (produced with Gunter Pfaff), "Latah: A Culture-Specific Elaboration of the Startle Reflex" (1983) is a classic within medical anthropology.

Selected publications

*Simons, Ronald C. (1980) "The resolution of the Latah paradox." J Nerv Ment Dis 168(4):195-206. *Simons, Ronald C. (1983) "Latah II--problems with a purely symbolic interpretation. A reply to Michael Kenny." J Nerv Ment Dis 171(3):168-75. *Simons, Ronald C. (1983) "Latah III--how compelling is the evidence for a psychoanalytic interpretation? A reply to H.B.M. Murphy." J Nerv Ment Dis 171(3):178-81. * Paperback *Simons, Ronald C. (1993) "A simple defense of Western biomedical explanatory schemata." Medical Anthropology 15(2):201-8. *Simons, Ronald C. (1996) ''Boo! culture, experience, and the startle reflex''. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

External links

Introduction to Culture-Bound Syndromes
in the ''Psychiatric Times'', by Ronald C. Simons 1935 births Living people American psychiatrists American anthropologists Michigan State University faculty {{US-psychiatrist-stub