APA Dictionary of Psychology

n. a culture-bound syndrome found in Korea, characterized by anxiety and physical complaints such as general weakness, dizziness, loss of appetite, insomnia, and gastrointestinal problems, followed by dissociation and alleged possession by ancestral spirits (see dissociative trance disorder). It is considered by those affected to be a “divine illness,” in which the individual experiences hallucinations of becoming a shaman and a cure occurs when this conversion takes place.