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Epilogue: Trauma and the Vicissitudes of Interdisciplinary Integration

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 July 2009

By
Laurence J. Kirmayer ,
Robert Lemelson  and
Mark Barad
Edited by
Laurence J. Kirmayer ,
Robert Lemelson  and
Mark Barad
Laurence J. Kirmayer
Affiliation:
James McGill Professor and Director Division of Social and Transcultural Psychiatry, McGill University; Director Culture and Mental Health Research Unit, Sir Mortimer B. Davis Jewish General Hospital, Montréal, Québec
Robert Lemelson
Affiliation:
Lecturer Departments of Anthropology and Psychology, University of California, Los Angeles; President, Foundation for Psychocultural Research (FPR); Co-director Lemelson Foundation
Mark Barad
Affiliation:
Associate Professor Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences, University of California, Los Angeles
Laurence J. Kirmayer
Affiliation:
McGill University, Montréal
Robert Lemelson
Affiliation:
University of California, Los Angeles
Mark Barad
Affiliation:
University of California, Los Angeles
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Summary

The chapters in this volume emerged from a series of workshops and a conference organized by the Foundation for Psychocultural Research that sought to bring neuroscientists, clinicians, and anthropologists together to address a common object of study and a common set of questions. We assumed that each disciplinary perspective and research program had something to contribute to a comprehensive view of the problem of trauma. We hoped that this encounter would lead to creative exchange – and some significant steps toward the integration of diverse models and levels of explanation.

In modest ways this integration occurred. In some cases, the integration reflected a preexisting connection between two disciplines. For example, the approach to treating PTSD symptoms by exposure, as advocated by Yadin and Foa, is based directly on the procedures and results of extinction learning, which the authors in Section I have begun to explain in terms of neuropsychological, physiological, and molecular mechanisms.

In other cases this effort made tentative new links. For example, the role of narrative in traumatic experience cuts across disciplines. This reflects the central importance of narrativity in human experience. Stories of suffering anchored in bodily experience, overarching cultural models, and ideologies of the person are all grist for the clinical encounter, and the transformation of narratives is a means both of effecting psychological change and of reconnecting the individual to his or her social and cultural contexts.

Type
Chapter
Information
Understanding Trauma
Integrating Biological, Clinical, and Cultural Perspectives
 , pp. 475 - 490
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2007

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  • Epilogue: Trauma and the Vicissitudes of Interdisciplinary Integration
    • By Laurence J. Kirmayer, James McGill Professor and Director Division of Social and Transcultural Psychiatry, McGill University; Director Culture and Mental Health Research Unit, Sir Mortimer B. Davis Jewish General Hospital, Montréal, Québec, Robert Lemelson, Lecturer Departments of Anthropology and Psychology, University of California, Los Angeles; President, Foundation for Psychocultural Research (FPR); Co-director Lemelson Foundation, Mark Barad, Associate Professor Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences, University of California, Los Angeles
  • Edited by Laurence J. Kirmayer, McGill University, Montréal, Robert Lemelson, University of California, Los Angeles, Mark Barad, University of California, Los Angeles
  • Book: Understanding Trauma
  • Online publication: 27 July 2009
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511500008.028
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  • Epilogue: Trauma and the Vicissitudes of Interdisciplinary Integration
    • By Laurence J. Kirmayer, James McGill Professor and Director Division of Social and Transcultural Psychiatry, McGill University; Director Culture and Mental Health Research Unit, Sir Mortimer B. Davis Jewish General Hospital, Montréal, Québec, Robert Lemelson, Lecturer Departments of Anthropology and Psychology, University of California, Los Angeles; President, Foundation for Psychocultural Research (FPR); Co-director Lemelson Foundation, Mark Barad, Associate Professor Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences, University of California, Los Angeles
  • Edited by Laurence J. Kirmayer, McGill University, Montréal, Robert Lemelson, University of California, Los Angeles, Mark Barad, University of California, Los Angeles
  • Book: Understanding Trauma
  • Online publication: 27 July 2009
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511500008.028
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Epilogue: Trauma and the Vicissitudes of Interdisciplinary Integration
    • By Laurence J. Kirmayer, James McGill Professor and Director Division of Social and Transcultural Psychiatry, McGill University; Director Culture and Mental Health Research Unit, Sir Mortimer B. Davis Jewish General Hospital, Montréal, Québec, Robert Lemelson, Lecturer Departments of Anthropology and Psychology, University of California, Los Angeles; President, Foundation for Psychocultural Research (FPR); Co-director Lemelson Foundation, Mark Barad, Associate Professor Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences, University of California, Los Angeles
  • Edited by Laurence J. Kirmayer, McGill University, Montréal, Robert Lemelson, University of California, Los Angeles, Mark Barad, University of California, Los Angeles
  • Book: Understanding Trauma
  • Online publication: 27 July 2009
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511500008.028
Available formats
×