Since the 1970s, understanding of the effects of trauma, including
flashbacks and withdrawal, has become widespread in the United States.
As a result Americans can now claim that the phrase posttraumatic stress
disorder (PTSD) is familiar even if the American Psychiatric
Association's criteria for diagnosis are not. As embedded as these ideas
now are in the American mindset, however, they are more widely
applicable, this volume attempts to show, than is generally recognized.
The essays in Culture and PTSD trace how trauma and its effects vary
across historical and cultural contexts.
Culture and PTSD examines the applicability of PTSD to other cultural
contexts and details local responses to trauma and the extent they vary
from PTSD as defined in the American Psychiatric Association's
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual. Investigating responses in Peru,
Indonesia, Haiti, and Native American communities as well as among
combat veterans, domestic abuse victims, and adolescents, contributors
attempt to address whether PTSD symptoms are present and, if so, whether
they are a salient part of local responses to trauma. Moreover, the
authors explore other important aspects of the local presentation and
experience of trauma-related disorder, whether the Western concept of
PTSD is known to lay members of society, and how the introduction of
PTSD shapes local understandings and the course of trauma-related
disorders.
By attempting to determine whether treatments developed for those
suffering PTSD in American and European contexts are effective in global
settings of violence or disaster, Culture and PTSD questions the
efficacy of international responses that focus on trauma.
Contributors: Carmela Alcántara, Tom Ball, James K. Boehnlein, Naomi
Breslau, Whitney Duncan, Byron J. Good, Mary-Jo DelVecchio Good, Jesse
H. Grayman, Bridget M. Haas, Devon E. Hinton, Erica James, Janis H.
Jenkins, Hanna Kienzler, Brandon Kohrt, Roberto Lewis-Fernández, Richard
J. McNally, Theresa D. O'Nell, Duncan Pedersen, Nawaraj Upadhaya, Carol
M. Worthman, Allan Young.
