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The more I think about it, I think I misinterpreted the idea, or understood it only partially.

Am reading "The Illness Narratives" by Arthur Kleinman (MD and anthropologist), who talks (amongst many other things) about how culture shapes/teaches one how to express distress. The particular illness idiom that we identified for depression during our discussion is not, apparently, universal; in China, depression tends to be expressed in more somatic terms, offering a whole other set of symptoms that cluster together. I wonder whether people there do not experience the same symptoms we do here, or whether they are simply not emphasized? Or sanctioned? Warrants further investigation, certainly...