Anthropology meets psychology

I've always had an interest in language and culture and the way they affect thoughts and physical manifestations. I never had a chance to take more than a cognition and culture, and an intro to linguistics course in undergrad but they've stayed with me over the past 10 years. Involved in a conversation regarding SAD someone said that Americans should stop complaining about weather affecting them to the point where they medicate. (I got disgruntled with the tone of the post but his comment was a fair one so here's my response)

The idea that Americans are the only ones who do suffer, not only from SAD, but depression in general and then medicate themselves to make it better is a very Western idea. In Indonesia (I believe Java in particular), the symptoms that the DSM enumerates as Unipolar Depression are diagnosed in the rural regions as possession by evil spirits, and the people possessed are exorcised. In China (this is where it's a little more foggy so I may be wrong about this, it's been 10 years) I believe that the symptoms we know as depression are...an energy imbalance? So the people who are unbalanced as it were, are treated for that particular disorder with Eastern treatmens. Now in these 3 very different societies, the number of people who manifest these symptoms are proportionately pretty similar. The success rates of treatment for these people in these very different countries with these very different people are proportionately pretty similar. So when it comes down to it, yes, for whatever reason people get so sad from the weather they take anti-depressants, and it works. If I were Javanese, I'd run right to my shaman and ask for help, too. There should be no stigma with needing help to balance a mood.