| Hwabyeong | |
|---|---|
| Hangul | 화병 |
| Hanja | 火病 |
| Revised Romanization | hwabyeong |
| McCune–Reischauer | hwabyŏng |
Hwabyeong or Hwabyung, literally "anger illness" or "fire illness”, is a Korean culture-bound somatization disorder, a mental illness.[1] It manifests as one or more of a wide range of physical symptoms, in response to emotional disturbance, such as stress from troublesome interpersonal relationships or life crises.
It most often occurs in middle-aged women in their 40s and 50 menopausal years, who are less educated, come from a lower socio-economic level and live in rural areas. The individuals typically live in traditional families, which stress the value of males while devaluing women. A woman's virtue is to quietly bear misfortune and unhappiness while maintaining harmony. This has been reinforced by long periods of war and occupation (continuing today with the North/South Korea division), along with a strict hierarchy in traditional Korean culture, has placed a tremendous amount of long-term burden on these women that continues to be a significant impact on their daily lives.
Hwa-byung is believed to be caused by a build-up of unresolved anger, which disturbs the balance of the five bodily elements. The triggering cause is external events, particularly intra-familiar stressors such as spousal infidelity and conflict with in-laws. Because of the cultural emphasis on familial harmony and peace, expressing anger is not acceptable, so the anger is suppressed, and builds on itself over time. The suppressed anger, hate and despair is known as han, or "everlasting woe".
Behavior related to hwabyeong includes sighing. In addition, sufferers might report such symptoms as a heavy feeling in the chest, perceived abdominal mass (previously thought to define the illness, but now believed to be atypical), sleeplessness, hot flushes, cold flushes and blurred vision. They may also demonstrate typical neurotic symptoms such as anxiety, depression, obsessive-compulsiveness, as well as anorexia, paranoia or fearfulness, absent-mindedness and irritability.
Western doctors are likely to diagnose it as a kind of stress or depression. Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders currently lists hwabyeong among its culture-bound illnesses. Outside of Korea, informally, hwabyeong may be mistaken as a reference to a psychological profile marked by a lack of temper or explosive, generally bellicose behavior resulting from a lack of temper. To the contrary, hwabyeong is a traditional psychological term used to refer to a condition characterized by passive suffering, is roughly comparable to depression, and is typically associated with older women.
In South Korea, it is also called ulhwabyeong (鬱火病), "depression anger illness".