The cultural construction of Hwabyung, a Korean culture-bound syndrome, is explored among a sample of 20 elderly Korean immigrant women in the United States. Hwabyung results when distressed emotions associated with the specifically Korean way of perceiving and reacting to intolerable and tragic life situations cause bodily symptoms by interfering with the harmony of "Ki" (vital energy). Korean elderly immigrants report a broad range of symptoms associated with Hwabyung; they less frequently report the epigastric mass, which had been considered the cardinal symptom by cosmopolitan and traditional medical writers. Hwabyung is treated holistically with psychosocial support from family, spiritual comfort, home and popular remedies, traditional Korean medicine, and biomedical treatments. Hwabyung provides a way of conceptualizing and resolving emotional distress through somatization among Korean elderly immigrant women. © 1990 Kluwer Academic Publishers.

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psychological aspect human District of Columbia Stress, Psychological mental stress Aged anger ethnology United States traditional medicine case report female cultural factor Article Support, U.S. Gov't, P.H.S. Medicine, Oriental Traditional adult migration Emigration and Immigration Cultural Characteristics Somatoform Disorders somatoform disorder Middle Age Korea