Foundation for Psychocultural Research
I took a little bit of a jaunt around the website for the Foundation for Psychocultural Research (found here), and found out that most of their events (conferences and workshops) are dealing with the idea of the interaction of culture and trauma. The list of conferences and workshops is as follows:
- Culture and brain interactions
- Post traumatic stress disorder
- Post traumatic stress disorder: Biological, Clinical and Cultural Approaches to Trauma's Effects
- Trauma and Early Relational Experiences, Social Contexts, and Developmental Trajectories
- Psychological Trauma: Integrating Biological, Clinical, and Sociocultural Approaches to Trauma's Effects
- 4 Dimensions of Childhood: Brain, Mind, Culture, and Time
- Culture, Brain, and Emotion
- Seven Dimensions of Emotion
- Culture, Brain, and Psychopathology
- Critical Neuroscience: Challenging Reductionism in Psychiatry and Social Neuroscience
- Cultural and Biological Contexts of Psychiatric Disorder: Implications for Diagnosis and Treatment
Psychological anthropologists study ethnopsychology (the study of how various cultures define and create personality, identity, and mental health).
These anthropologists aim to discover how a person's culture shapes how they think and react to situations. I find it interesting that trauma is so big of a topic on this website. Now that I think about it more, I think that it makes a lot of sense, we deal with life according to the enculturation (the process of transmitting culture to infants and other new members of society through both informal and formal processes) we received as children.
We are in a time where many professionals or aid workers go to foreign countries during times of crisis, either to help in relief work, or to help deal with the human trauma that results from crisis/disaster. In these cases, the people they encounter, interact with, and help are usually from a different culture. It's so important for these workers to understand how to relate to the people they aim to help, and how to understand what they're seeing (in speech, actions, and non-verbal cues) in terms of reactions to crisis.
key concepts used: ethnopsychology, enculturation
*Logo found here
With the majoy globalization, for those who are new to a country, it must be an extreme shock to many individuals (even those of us who may seem most stable!) It's definatly good to have such workers who understand ethnophsycology and help others to have as best of a transition as possible with these unknown cultures that they dont know anything about!
ReplyDeleteI like your point about the applied value of ethnopsychology.
ReplyDeleteYou suggest an interesting relationship between trauma and enculturation. If I read your post correctly, it seems that you are referring to instances of culture contact as a site of both trauma and cultural difference. With reference to Cultural Anthropology Blog's comments above, migration can be a time of "re-enculturation", which is often a time of highly visible trauma in the form of culture shock. So there is probably an important role for applied ethnopsychologists in places like Canada as well!
It's good post. I like it. You give me a good view to human trauma and cultural difference. It looks like culture shock. Enculturation is important for people, and it is most important for kids.
ReplyDelete