OBJECTIVE: The image of the wicked stepmother has created a prejudice against stepmothers, which makes it difficult for them to adjust to their stepfamilies. This study compared fairy tales from different cultures to reestablish the nature of stepmothers.METHODS: Grimms’ Fairy Tales (GFT) was used to represent Western culture, with stepmother characters appearing in 15 out of 210 tales. “The Collection of Korean Traditional Fairy Tales” (KFT) was used to represent Eastern culture, with stepmother characters featured in 14 out of 15,107 tales. We examined the relationships between stepmothers and stepchildren in GFT and KFT.RESULTS: Daughters were abused more often than sons in both genres. In GFT, jealousy spurred the abuse in 12 of 15 cases, while in KFT greed was predominant in 12 of 14 cases.CONCLUSION: The fairy tale portrayals of wicked stepmothers may be associated with the stigma children place on their stepmothers, which needs to be overcome.
Child ; Divorce ; Folklore ; Humans ; Jealousy ; Marriage ; Nuclear Family ; Parents ; Prejudice

Dopamine and serotonin drew much attention to understand a biological mechanism underlying alchohol dependence. There were three reasons. First, behavioral effects governed by them were quite similar with various psychopathology observed in alcoholism. Second, preference to alcohol drinking tended to be related to the genetically transmitted biochemical abnormalities of these neurotransmitters. Finally, reward-mediating brain areas which seemed to be related to alcoholism were included in dopaminergic and serotonergic pathways. The aims of this study were to look for any changes of dopamine and serotonin concentrations in alcohol dependence, to identify what psychopathology was associated with, and to understand a biological mechanisms underlying alcohol-related psychopathology. Subjects were consisted of 25 male patients admitted with alcohol dependence and 25 healthy male volunteers. Samples drawn after 1 to 3 weeks of detoxification were analyzed by HPLC for the measurement of plasma dopamine and serotonin concentrations.Otherwise, precise alcohol history including duration of alcohol drinking, onset age, family history, types of alcoholism, MAST score, and frequency of hospitalization was done. Furthermore, psychop-athology was rated by several questionnares like BPRS, MMPI, Sexual Jealousy Questionnaire, BDI and CES-D. 1) Mean concentration of dopamine in alcoholics(61.8+/-22.6pg/ml) was significantly(p<0.01) lower than in controls(77.4+/-16.3pg/ml), while serotonin concentration in alcoholics tended to be higher than in controls. 2) Dopamine concentration was negatively correlated with 'hallucinatory behavior' item(p<0.01) and 'unusual thought content' item(p<0.01) of BPRS, and 'hypochondriasis' scale(p<0.05) of MMPI. While serotonin concentration was positively correlated with 'tension' item(p<0.001) of BPRS. 3) Dopamine concentration was negatively correlated with SJQ(p<0.05), while serotonin concentration was positively correlated with frequency of hospitalization(p<0.05) and total score of BPRS(p<0.001). In conclusion, reduced dopamine and increased serotonin concentrations seemed to be associated with psychosis developed in alcohol dependence. Otherwise, impulsivity-aggressivity easily found in alcoholics might be biologically related to decreased dopamine concentration.
Age of Onset ; Alcohol Drinking ; Alcoholics ; Alcoholism* ; Brain ; Chromatography, High Pressure Liquid ; Dopamine* ; Hospitalization ; Humans ; Jealousy ; Male ; MMPI ; Neurotransmitter Agents ; Plasma ; Psychopathology ; Psychotic Disorders ; Surveys and Questionnaires ; Serotonin* ; Volunteers

Literature produced by the government and the private sector in the colonial era was reviewed to determine the knowledge of the people of colonial Chosun of mental illness and mental patients and the mental patient management system that they implemented or intended to implement. The results of this study show that the people of Chosun realized the need to sterilize mental patients because they considered mental patients very violent, dangerous and eugenically inferior and they believed that mental patients would eventually impede the prosperity of Chosun. The people of colonial Chosun had learned about the lifelong mental hygiene movement, which had knowledge of mental illness prevention. However, they also recognized that people who developed mental illness despite efforts to prevent such condition needed help from the modern system, especially from modern Western psychiatry. The primary responsibility to attend to mental patients was imposed on their family. The family had to understand the symptoms of mental illness according to the modern medical classification and how to deal with them. When the family could not afford to take care of its mentally ill family member due to the increase in the member's risk behavior such as frenzied-convulsive excitement, paranoia and delusion of jealousy, the family was also responsible for isolating him and connecting him with a mental hospital. The police and social workers were also responsible for observing and monitoring mental patients in their community and for connecting them with a mental hospital. The police made a list of mental patients within their area of jurisdiction and prohibited them from wandering based on the law. It was also considered desirable for mental patients who could not identify their family members to be sent to a mental hospital. Social workers were responsible for managing mental patient sanatoriums, and district commissioners sent to the police mental patients who had no family to look after them or who posed a threat to others, or else commissioned them to the government hospital. Thus, the final responsibility for mental patients was imposed on the modern Western medical team, because the district commissioners sent them to the police and the police sent them to the government mental hospital. Most educated people and government personnel in the colonial era thought modern Western psychiatry circles were responsible for mental patient management, and the Japanese empire enacted mental-health-related laws and made efforts to secure funds for the establishment of mental hospitals. As the literature at that time also show the position of the modern Western medical circle, their ambivalent attitude to mental patients must also be clarified to interpret the modern approach to treating mental patients in colonial Chosun. In this context, a research on historical figures in Japanese psychiatry, a study on the specific treatment methods used by the modern Western psychiatric team in the colonial era and their effects, and the extension of the subject period for such researches are suggested.
Asian Continental Ancestry Group ; Delusions ; Eugenics ; Financial Management ; Hospitals, Psychiatric ; Humans ; Jealousy ; Jurisprudence ; Mental Health ; Mentally Ill Persons ; Paranoid Disorders ; Police ; Private Sector ; Risk-Taking ; Social Work

One hundred and twenty-seven children with psychologic problems were encountered by the author at twice weekly morning walk-in clinics of the pediatric department of Seoul National University Hospital during the nine months period from January through September 1980. Diagnostic clues for psychogenic origin of various somatic complaints were obtained from complete history taking, thorough physical examination, tests and laboratory procedures as indicated, and psychologic assessment of the patients as well as their family. There were more boys than girls with sex ratio of 2.2 to 1. Distribution of children with psychosocial problem according to age and sex revealed that peak incidence for boys and girls was at ten years and six, respectively. Number of children with psychogenic problem according to the order of birth(rank) showed that the first born and only child accounted 40.2 per cent of total children with psychogenic problem. One boy including only child type of and position in sibship accounted for 24.4 per cent of all children with psychologic problem. Frequency and prercentage of various somatic complaints among one hundred and twenty-seven children with psychosocial problem revealed as follows: abdominal pain; cough; headache; pollakiruria, enuresis and dysuria, vomiting and nausea; dizziness, chest pain, fatigability, hyperpnea, hyperventilation and sigh; anorexia, weight loss and poor weight gain, and others in decreasing order as shown in table 5. There were sixteen children with facial tics and five children with conversion reactions. Distribution of various somatic complaints and problems according to age of children revealed that abdominal pain peaked at nine years of age and both headache and facial tics were distributed throughout school age period. The most frequently obtainable etiologic psychogenic factors in cases of children with psychogenic problem were sibling relationship such as rivalry, jealousy, bickering, quarreling and spacing of siblings less than two years which accounted for 29.1 per cent of cases, followed by parent-child interaction such as overprotection, oversolicitude, over-restriction(prohibition), overindulgence and conflicting parental attitude in 27.6 per cents; frustration such as unfulfilled wish and unacceptable demand in 17.3 per cent;marital discord(parental conflict) such as divorce, separation and mother dominating over father in 12.0 per cent; separation anxiety such as transplantation(change in residence, change in schools, immigration) and death of family in 8.7 per cent; ecomomic status such as financial stress and inadequate sleeping arrangement in three; physical handicaps such as short stature and alopecia in two; and factors outside home such as poor school performance and unsatisfactory peer group interaction in two.
Abdominal Pain ; Alopecia ; Anorexia ; Anxiety, Separation ; Chest Pain ; Child ; Conversion Disorder ; Cough ; Divorce ; Dizziness ; Dysuria ; Enuresis ; Fathers ; Female ; Frustration ; Headache ; Humans ; Hyperventilation ; Incidence ; Jealousy ; Male ; Mothers ; Nausea ; Only Child ; Outpatients* ; Parents ; Peer Group ; Physical Examination ; Seoul ; Sex Ratio ; Siblings ; Tics ; Vomiting ; Weight Gain ; Weight Loss