Doctoral Dissertation Research: Trauma, Mental Illness, and Cen: Networks of Therapeutic Care and the Cohabitation of Concepts of Suffering In Postwar Northern Uganda

加州大学戴维斯分校的博士生Adrian Yen在Alan Klima博士的指导下，将以乌干达北部的Acholi社区为案例研究，调查西方精神病学的全球影响及其对冲突后社会的影响。拟议中的研究将在北部的古卢地区进行，那里是最近圣主抵抗军和乌干达政府之间内战的主要地点。在那里，国际和平建设倡议越来越多地推动使用西方精神病学来治疗最近被宣布为临床历史上有记录的与战争有关的精神疾病的最高比率之一。该研究将重点放在一个新的转诊系统上，该系统将使个体在传统治疗师、该地区主要政府医院的精神病学病房和非政府组织之间来回转诊。该研究将调查不同的精神病学概念和实践如何与流行的传统治疗模式交叉，以及这些遭遇如何影响该地区数千名受影响个体的痛苦经历和相关治疗结果。通过对传统治疗师、心理健康专家和Acholi客户进行为期15个月的人种学田野调查，研究人员将观察临床咨询，进行半结构化访谈，收集疾病叙述，以调查三组相互关联的研究问题。首先，为什么今天的阿乔利人可以获得精神治疗，以及如何获得治疗，谁参与了治疗的管理？第二，不同的从业者如何适应和管理该地区疾病概念和实践的融合，以及他们的客户如何回应这些住宿？最后，为什么阿乔利人转向精神医学和相关技术，如药物和心理治疗，以及他们如何理解这些治疗工具在他们的生活和社区中所起的作用？这项研究的结果将有助于更深入地了解传统治疗实践和精神病学知识如何相互影响，并在冲突后的背景下产生新的治疗方案。通过这样做，这项研究将对治疗受创伤事件和战争影响的人做出重要贡献。这项研究的结果还将有助于理解生物医学及其在人类事务管理中日益增长的影响所带来的影响。最后，这项研究的资金支持社会科学家的教育。

University of California-Davis doctoral student Adrian Yen, supervised by Dr. Alan Klima, will use northern Uganda's Acholi community as a case study to investigate the global influence of Western psychiatry and its implications for post-conflict societies. The proposed research will be conducted in the northern district of Gulu, a major site of the recent civil war between the Lord's Resistance Army and the Ugandan government. There, international peace-building initiatives increasingly promote the use of Western psychiatry as a way of treating what was recently declared one of the highest rates of war-related mental illness recorded in clinical history. Focusing on a novel system of referrals that remits individuals back and forth among traditional healers, the psychiatry ward of the region's main government hospital, and NGOs, the research will investigate how different psychiatric concepts and practices intersect with popular Acholi models of traditional healing, and how these encounters shape experiences of distress and related therapeutic outcomes for thousands of affected individuals in the region. Through fifteen months of ethnographic fieldwork with traditional healers, mental health professionals, and Acholi clients, the researcher will observe clinical consultations, conduct semi-structured interviews, and collect illness narratives to investigate three inter-related sets of research questions. First, why and how are psychiatric therapies made available to Acholi people today, and who is involved in their administration? Second, how do different practitioners adapt and manage the confluence of illness concepts and practices in the region, and how do their clients respond to these accommodations? Finally, why do Acholi people turn to psychiatric medicine and related technologies like drugs and psycho-therapy, and how do they understand the role these therapeutic tools play in their lives and communities?The results of this research will contribute to a deeper understanding of how traditional healing practices and psychiatric knowledge affect one another and give rise to novel treatment regimes in a post-conflict context. By doing so, the research stands to make an important contribution to the treatment of people affected by traumatic events and warfare. Findings from this research will also contribute to understandings of biomedicine and the implications of its growing influence in the government of human affairs. Finally, funding for this research supports the education of a social scientist.