Dissertation Research: Psychological Trauma and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder in Vietnam

创伤后应激障碍是一种诊断，除了与战争有关的环境外，还可以在许多情况下找到。这篇由哈佛大学文化人类学专业的学生进行的论文研究项目将探索心理创伤这一与创伤后应激障碍相关的基本经验范畴是如何从历史和文化上构建的，以及心理创伤的经历是如何通过越南的社区和机构来调节的。该项目将调查创伤经历对越南人意味着什么，以及关于创伤的想法是如何跨越机构内部和外部的。将研究外国创伤和疾病理论与越南本土精神病学之间的关系，重点是外国理论如何被当地实践和痛苦和疾病理论“本土化”。这名学生还将研究创伤的俗套理论如何影响越南的精神病学实践。这些数据将来自对患者的观察和采访，以及河内各机构精神科病房的档案查阅，以及对河内郊区一个农村家庭的采访。在对该村进行初步深入研究后，将形成一项关于创伤、休克和压力的一般概念的调查，并在河内附近的其他四个村庄进行调查。这项研究将促进我们对生物医学疾病类别的文化史的理解，并提高我们对世界这一重要领域的知识。

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is a diagnosis that is found in many situations in addition to war-related settings. This dissertation research project by a cultural anthropology student from Harvard University will explore how psychological trauma, the fundamental category of experience associated with PTSD, is historically and culturally constructed and how the experience of psychological trauma is mediated by communities and institutions in Vietnam. The project will investigate what the experience of trauma means to Vietnamese, and how ideas about trauma cross boundaries in and out of institutions. The relation between foreign theories of trauma and illness and indigenous Vietnamese psychiatry will be studied, focusing on how foreign theories are `indigenized` by local practice and theories of suffering and illness. The student will also study how lay theories of trauma have influenced the practice of psychiatry in Vietnam. The data will derive from observations and interviews with patients, and consultation of archives, in psychiatric wards of institutions in Hanoi as well from interviewing families in a rural village on the outskirts of the city. After preliminary in-depth research in the village, a survey on general notions of trauma, shock and stress will be formed and administered in four other villages near Hanoi. This research should advance our understanding of the cultural history of biomedical disease categories, as well as improve our knowledge of this important area of the world.