The Ethnomedical Approach
The ethnomedical approach is the way an illness gets treated in different cultures.
Depression is dealt with in different ways around the world. In modern medicine, depression is usually treated with therapy and medication. In extreme cases electroshock therapy is used. This illness has become biomedicalized in western culture based on how it is treated in the United States. It is viewed as a social norm in our environment today. It is almost expected for someone in power, wealth or with intelligence to end up clinically depressed.
In another culture, like in Africa, depression is seldom recognized and when it is, it's treated with folk medicine. They preform rituals to cleanse the body and to drive away the spirit that is causing the depression to happen.