Between Trauma and the Sacred - Steel, Zachary

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Résumé :

Dr. James Rodger is a Consultant Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist in the United Kingdom National Health Service and an Honorary Associate Research Fellow at the University of Exeter. He holds an additional degree in Medical Anthropology and has undertaken postgraduate training in Systemic Practice. His principle clinical and research interest is the developmental, social and cultural aspects of psychotic phenomena and related implications for intervention. He undertook the key fieldwork forming the basis of this work in 2004, in the context of an 18-month mental health research program in Timor-Leste. In addition Dr Rodger has provided expert evidence relating to transcultural trauma-related psychiatric presentations for both asylum and criminal cases. Previous publications relate to the wider epidemiological research findings and implications from Timor-Leste, to critical-relational challenges to psychiatric practice, and to the anthropology of altered mental states.

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Biographie:
psychoanalysis and psychoanalytic anthropology...

Sommaire:
The relatively frequent occurrence of rapid onset and very brief, but often florid, psychotic states, with periodic recurrence, alongside relatively low rates of PTSD and chronic psychosis, were unexpected findings from the 2004 East Timor Mental Health Study, conducted in the context of the country's recently won independence and in the wake of the atrocities endured in the protracted fight for sovereignty. Further unanticipated was the frequent association of recurrence with the time of the new moon (fulan lotuk) and other times or places of sacred (lulik) or associated cultural significance. The perceived violation of culturally sacrosanct lulik obligations often also appeared to foreshadow the initial onset of such patterns of distress. Significant episodes of trauma and loss appeared a hidden feature of affected individuals histories, which we argue have become symbolically entwined with local cultural understandings of ritual obligation, sacredness, and taboo.