Cambodian Belief About Suicide by Hanging

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Luigi
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Re: Cambodian Belief About Suicide by Hanging

Post by Luigi »

I think more along the lines of brain chemistry being the culprit causing clinical depression. Serotonin levels among a few other brain chems. Situational depression usually corrects itself in time if the person is basically stable.
Just my $.02 worth & a couple psych classes & a few sessions with a talented therapist.
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Re: Cambodian Belief About Suicide by Hanging

Post by CEOCambodiaNews »



This is the video showing how the practice is being done. If you are confused with the video, please spend a few minutes reading the OP.
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Luigi
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Re: Cambodian Belief About Suicide by Hanging

Post by Luigi »

Perfectly clear now. Women screaming scares me too.
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Re: Cambodian Belief About Suicide by Hanging

Post by Samouth »

Luigi wrote:Perfectly clear now. Women screaming scares me too.
Agree, her voice scared the sh*t out of me.
បើសិនធ្វើចេះ ចេះឲ្យគេកោត បើសិនធ្វើឆោត ឆោតឲ្យគេអាណិត។

If you know a lot, know enough to make them respect you, if you are stupid, be stupid enough so they can pity you.
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Re: Cambodian Belief About Suicide by Hanging

Post by Rama »

I read two articles this morning about suicides which were ascribed to កំរោលចូល - evil spirits possessing the victims.

One was in Nokor Thom newspaper (so no link) but the title was something like "Hugging his wife in the evening, in the morning dead hanging from a tree" about a builder with 3 kids. Normal enough guy, but his wife did admit he was an insomniac. The evening before he hung himself he drank a little with a few friends and went to bed with his wife. He woke in the night as he normally did, however this time he woke to hang himself.
His son when interviewed said his dad must have been possessed by an evil spirit.

Would be hard to disagree with the boy.

Other article is this http://kampucheathmey.com/kpt/?p=311625 the title reads"Evil Spirit Possesses him and makes him take a knife and cut open his chest"
He (an ex-chef alcoholic) locked himself in a room the evening before, and wouldn't let his cousin into the room saying there was someone pointing a gun at him. In the morning they opened the door to find he had cut himself open.

Again, hard to disagree that it was an "evil spirit" that made him do. Westerners might call it a delusion, but we'd agree, I would imagine, that it was an evil delusion.
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Re: Cambodian Belief About Suicide by Hanging

Post by Anchor Moy »

The video, put together with Samouth's OP, gave a very interesting take on local psychiatric treatment for depression and suicide. Thanks for that.

@Rama: I don't think it always matters if you want to call it an evil spirit or a mental illness. Often, the importance is in addressing the person's concerns and their feeling that they are alone with their problem; they need some way to deal with it that makes sense to them and to feel that they have some support. The families also need some support.
I agree with you that it is important to work with cultural beliefs, which is why western psychiatry may not always work in Khmer culture.That said, I think there is something to be said for certain western methods such as therapy, but adapted to the local mindset. This means training Cambodian doctors, and more education in mental health generally, as well as the development of mental health facilities specific to Cambodian problems and Khmer culture.

In the meantime, nobody can dispute that trauma and/or mental illness is producing a lot of violence against self and others in Cambodia.
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