Doctoral Dissertation Research: Mental Disorders, Quranic Healing, and Psychiatry in Contemporary Egypt

博士生安娜·玛丽亚·维尼亚(纽约市立大学研究生中心)将在塔拉勒·阿萨德博士的指导下，从事当代伊斯兰社会传统治疗实践与现代医学之间关系的研究。研究的重点将是当代精神疾病的文化模式，它涉及到诊断、治疗和机构的复杂联系。她将把重点放在石英治愈和驱魔上，尽管人们有其他选择，包括西方的精神病学方法，但这种方法在今天越来越受欢迎。这项研究将在埃及开罗进行。研究人员将专注于《古兰经》治疗的三个方面，这三个方面构成了当今辩论中的争议点：(1)人类心理学的概念化；(2)人类与精灵(灵魂)之间相互作用的性质的概念化；以及(3)古兰经经文用于治疗目的。研究人员将使用社会科学研究方法的混合来收集数据：分析各种媒体和档案来源；对精神病学家、卫生官员、宗教学者和《古兰经》治疗师进行半结构化访谈；观察《古兰经》治疗师的康复过程；收集患者的疾病描述。这些数据将被用来解决以下问题：在关于精神障碍的辩论中阐述了哪些情感倾向和正常概念，以及不同治疗方法的遭遇对它们有何影响？参与者在什么基础上对精神障碍做出权威主张，人们对伊斯兰正统、迷信和科学援引什么观点？这项研究很重要，因为它将有助于建立不同类型医疗实践之间动态关系的更好理论。这项研究的发现还将有助于为埃及和其他地方的穆斯林设计出对文化敏感的心理健康治疗方法。资助这项研究有助于培养研究生。

Doctoral student Ana Maria Vinea (Graduate Center of the City University of New York), under the supervision of Dr. Talal Asad, will undertake research on the relationship between traditional healing practices and modern medicine in contemporary Islamic societies. The focus of the research will be contemporary cultural models of mental disease, which involves a complex nexus of diagnoses, treatments, and institutions. Her focus will be on Quaranic healing and exorcism, which is increasingly popular today even though people have other choices including western psychiatric methods.The research will be be carried out in Cairo, Egypt. The researcher will concentrate on three aspects of Quranic healing that constitute points of controversy in present-day debates: (1) the conceptualization of human psychology; (2) conceptualizations of the nature of interactions between humans and jinns (spirits); and (3) the employment of Quranic verses for healing purposes. The researcher will employ a mixture of social science research methodologies to gather data: analysis of a variety of media and archival sources; semi-structured interviews with psychiatrists, health officials, religious scholars, and Quranic healers; observations of the healing sessions of Quranic healers; and collection of illness narratives from patients. The data will be used to address the following questions: What affective dispositions and notions of normality are articulated in debates on mental disorders and how are they affected by the encounter of different treatment methods? On what bases do the actors involved make authoritative claims about mental disorders and what ideas do people invoke about Islamic orthodoxy, superstition, and science? This research is important because it will contribute to building better theories of the dynamic relationship between different kinds of medical practices. Findings from the research also will help to devise culturally sensitive approaches to mental health treatment for Muslims in Egypt and elsewhere. Funding this research contributes to the training of a graduate student.