I’m confused, it sounds like the authors of the paper are describing complex PTSD which was initially defined by Judith Herman as chronic, compounded, interpersonal trauma. I assumed that was clearly applicable to living through social and political upheaval, war and displacement.
I also am pretty sure that Herman in fact contextualised trauma very firmly in political and social conditions.
Interesting, but not surprising, that the authors identify a tendency to medicalise and decontextualise trauma – I thought by definition this would not be possible.
Great explanations of how trauma is a disruption of the individual-social , not just individual, in the paper.
I wonder if it is, not that the concept of PTS(D) depoliticises trauma, but that the people who use the concept as a diagnosis depoliticise it?
How can we ensure that any concept does not become commodified and individualised in a psychiatric industry that consumes every concept and shapes it to fits its own medical model?
I would include trauma in the social determinants of mental distress, rather than throw it out with the biomedical model.
Trauma is defined as the effect of social factors, which distinguishes it from the so-called “diseases”. This is why PTSD does not fit easily into the biomedical model and is not fully recognised by psychiatry.
Even “individual” childhood and developmental trauma always occurs in a context that is socially determined by factors such as parental isolation, lack of access to services, poverty, racism, intergenerational disadvantage etc.
Integrating our understanding of the effects of trauma with our understanding of the social factors that cause or contribute to trauma and psychological distress has seemed to be the obvious way forward for decades.
I agree that relational healing is probably one of the most important factors for trauma. But I don’t really get the jump from recognising the social determinants of psychological distress, to more drug treatment like psychedelics. Every decade or so psychiatry proposes a miracle chemical cure for harms which evidence overwhelmingly shows are socially and environmentally caused (or highly contributing) and therefore solvable, and chooses to kick the can of fixing them down the road.
If real attention, policy and action was addressed to social determinants and their effects, including trauma, the dominant psychiatric practices of diagnosis and medication would be mostly redundant. Support and healing could be better served by social workers and community support services, with therapy (or medication ) used only for temporary management of more serious effects of trauma and distress.
I’m confused, it sounds like the authors of the paper are describing complex PTSD which was initially defined by Judith Herman as chronic, compounded, interpersonal trauma. I assumed that was clearly applicable to living through social and political upheaval, war and displacement.
I also am pretty sure that Herman in fact contextualised trauma very firmly in political and social conditions.
Interesting, but not surprising, that the authors identify a tendency to medicalise and decontextualise trauma – I thought by definition this would not be possible.
Great explanations of how trauma is a disruption of the individual-social , not just individual, in the paper.
I wonder if it is, not that the concept of PTS(D) depoliticises trauma, but that the people who use the concept as a diagnosis depoliticise it?
How can we ensure that any concept does not become commodified and individualised in a psychiatric industry that consumes every concept and shapes it to fits its own medical model?
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I would include trauma in the social determinants of mental distress, rather than throw it out with the biomedical model.
Trauma is defined as the effect of social factors, which distinguishes it from the so-called “diseases”. This is why PTSD does not fit easily into the biomedical model and is not fully recognised by psychiatry.
Even “individual” childhood and developmental trauma always occurs in a context that is socially determined by factors such as parental isolation, lack of access to services, poverty, racism, intergenerational disadvantage etc.
Integrating our understanding of the effects of trauma with our understanding of the social factors that cause or contribute to trauma and psychological distress has seemed to be the obvious way forward for decades.
I agree that relational healing is probably one of the most important factors for trauma. But I don’t really get the jump from recognising the social determinants of psychological distress, to more drug treatment like psychedelics. Every decade or so psychiatry proposes a miracle chemical cure for harms which evidence overwhelmingly shows are socially and environmentally caused (or highly contributing) and therefore solvable, and chooses to kick the can of fixing them down the road.
If real attention, policy and action was addressed to social determinants and their effects, including trauma, the dominant psychiatric practices of diagnosis and medication would be mostly redundant. Support and healing could be better served by social workers and community support services, with therapy (or medication ) used only for temporary management of more serious effects of trauma and distress.
Report comment