Published exactly fifty years after Gregory Bateson and Margaret Mead's Balinese Character (which still stands as the standard reference on Balinese personality and culture), this new study of the Balinese people -- a collaboration between a Western psychiatrist with wide experience ofBalinese culture and mental health and a Western-trained Balinese psychiatrist steeped in the local culture -- is unable to support the majority of Bateson and Mead's interpretations and conclusions and finds their basic assumptions inherently flawed. The study concludes that their book presents aninaccurate and misleading characterization of the Balinese as they were fifty years ago. In addition to this critique, the authors present their alternative formulations of psychosocial aspects of Balinese culture, their aim being to establish a more correct and valid portrayal of the life of the Balinese.
來源: Google Book