Doctoral Dissertation Research: The Role of Knowledge in the Experience and Understanding of a Psychological Disorder

芝加哥大学博士生布伦登·雷蒙德·雅库边在让·科马罗夫博士的指导下，将研究知识问题如何在话语中表现出来，并融入对精神疾病的体验和理解。知识的话语关注包括讨论什么构成准确的信息，什么可以和不可以知道，什么被认为是证据，以及如何在精神病学背景下部署证据。研究的重点将是美国治疗背景下的强迫症（OCD）。据估计，强迫症在美国的患病率为1%至3%，这使得这项研究具有广泛的社会价值。 研究人员将在美国的两个治疗强迫症的临床项目中进行人种学田野调查。 研究人员还将与强迫症支持团体，与强迫症相关的倡导者，并在有关强迫症及其治疗的会议进行实地考察。 将通过分析强迫症医学、研究和自助文献以及大众媒体进行额外的研究。 数据收集将集中于确定在这种情况下的话语是什么，它们是如何相互关联的，知识在这些话语中扮演什么角色，以及知识关注如何循环。 这个新项目将有助于更好地了解强迫症，并可能其他精神疾病，通过调查知识的关注如何影响强迫症的文化经验和理解。这将有助于精神疾病与文化之间关系的社会科学理论，以及改善对强迫症患者的护理。 此外，这项研究将支持社会科学家的教育。

University of Chicago doctoral student Brenden Raymond-Yakoubian, with guidance from Dr. Jean Comaroff, will investigate how knowledge concerns, evinced in discourse, figure into the experience and understanding of psychiatric disorders. The discourse of knowledge concerns includes discussions of what constitutes accurate information, what can and cannot be known, what is considered to be evidence, and how evidence may be deployed in psychiatric contexts. The focus of the research will be obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) in the American treatment context. OCD is estimated to have a prevalence rate of 1 to 3 percent in the US, which gives this research the potential for broad social value. The researcher will undertake ethnographic fieldwork at two clinical programs in the United States which treat OCD. The researcher will also undertake fieldwork with OCD support groups, with OCD-related advocates, and at conferences related to OCD and its treatment. Additional research will be conducted through analysis of OCD medical, research and self-help literature as well as popular media. Data collection will focus on determining what the discourses in this context are, how they are interrelated, what role knowledge plays in these discourses, and how knowledge concerns circulate.Previous social science study of OCD has focused on the disorder as a form of personal ritual or cultural modeling. This new project will contribute to better understanding of OCD, and potentially other psychiatric disorders, by investigating how knowledge concerns affect the cultural experiences and understandings of OCD. This will contribute to social science theory of the relation between mental illness and culture, as well as to improving care for those with OCD. Additionally, this research will support the education of a social scientist.