Table Of ContentTRAUMA,
CULTURE, AND
PTSD
C. Fred Alford
Trauma, Culture, and PTSD
C. F red A lford
Trauma, Culture, and
PTSD
C. Fred Alford
University of Maryland
College Park, Maryland, USA
ISBN 978-1-137-57599-9 ISBN 978-1-137-57600-2 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-57600-2
Library of Congress Control Number: 2016908466
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A
CKNOWLEDGMENTS
The Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies has kindly
authorized me to quote from a number of its testimonies. I particularly
appreciate the collaborative spirit with which Joanne Rudoff taught me to
appreciate the contents of the archive.
The work of the medical anthropologist, Allan Young, particularly his
book, T he Harmony of Illusions, helped me better approach and under-
stand the origins of the diagnosis of PTSD in the legacy of the Vietnam
War.
Marshall Alcorn, a fellow member of the Association for Psychoanalysis,
Culture and Society, has continually pushed me to widen my understand-
ing of trauma, although he would surely not agree with all my conclusions.
v
C
ONTENTS
1 Introduction 1
2 PTSD Is a Culturally Bound Concept 5
3 Trauma Is Political 31
4 Extreme Trauma and Its Transmission 53
5 The Meaning of Trauma and the Place of Neuroscience 83
6 Conclusion: How Massive Trauma Works 107
Index 115
vii
CHAPTER 1
Introduction
Abstract Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a popular diagnosis
today. This book argues that while it is not a very good scientifi c diagnosis,
it is still worthy of respect. PTSD attunes us to the suffering of individu-
als. Among the topics focused on are the origins of the diagnosis of PTSD
(Chap. 2 ) ; how trauma works in groups (Chap. 3 ) ; how trauma is transmit-
ted across the generations (Chap. 4 ) ; and the place of the neuropsycholog-
ical study of trauma (Chap. 5 ) . A theory of trauma is sketched in Chap. 6 .
Much as hysteria was during Freud’s days, so posttraumatic stress disorder
(PTSD) has become the diagnosis du jour of our days. Still stigmatizing
in some circles, PTSD has become a way of talking about the psychic pain
infl icted by modern life. I say “modern life” because PTSD seems to be
absent in traditional societies, a major topic of Chap. 2 . This is not to say
that trauma is absent in traditional societies, only that it does not look like
PTSD.
Along the way I will argue that, while it is not much of a scientifi c diag-
nosis, PTSD is a pretty good political diagnosis. PTSD reveals something
about the emptiness of modern life, at least in Western industrial societ-
ies. PTSD is a diagnosis that fi ts someone who is cut off from traditional
sources of support that people have relied on for millennia, including
religion and close-knit communities. In some ways, our culture prepares
people to suffer from PTSD.
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2016 1
C.F. Alford, Trauma, Culture, and PTSD
DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-57600-2_1
2 C.F. ALFORD
Another reason PTSD is a good diagnosis is because it generates a cri-
tique of power. The more we make PTSD important, the more we say that
the suffering of individuals counts for something in this world. The more
we make PTSD important, the more we may be inclined to ask where this
suffering comes from. Some research suggests that people are more trau-
matized by violent acts of individuals and groups than they are by natural
disasters. More generally, PTSD is a good diagnosis because it reveals the
sheer vulnerability of individuals to events beyond their control, some-
thing many of us would rather not think about. The psychic pain and suf-
fering of average people counts when we talk about PTSD.
The diagnosis of PTSD did not come about as the result of psychologi-
cal research, or at least, that was not the main reason. The diagnosis of
PTSD was the result of pressure by Vietnam veterans, and a few psychia-
trists who supported them, to explain the torment so many young men
experienced after serving a tour of duty in Vietnam. Chap. 2 tells this
story. In a word, PTSD is a political diagnosis, but a good one, for it says
that anyone can suffer the symptoms of severe psychic pain when placed
in a hostile environment for a long enough time. More recently, chronic
PTSD (C-PTSD) has become a recognized category, opening the diagno-
sis to children, as well as victims of less obvious violence.
Group trauma is the topic of Chap. 3 . It is actually a more problem-
atic category than it might at fi rst appear to be. PTSD is a diagnostic
category that applies only to individuals. A group cannot have PTSD,
just like it cannot have brown hair, or appendicitis; only individuals can.
Group trauma, I argue, happens when the dominant group in society
makes it diffi cult or impossible for individuals in other groups to make
use of the cultural resources a society provides its members to ward off
trauma.
These resources include everything from the conditions of decent
child rearing and education to the cultural resources of religion, philoso-
phy, music, art, and, above all, a coherent community. In this chapter, per-
haps more than any other, we see the way in which trauma is the result of a
political act (whether or not it is intentional): in a world of scarce resources,
the meaning of life turns out to be one of the scarcest resources of them
all. It need not be that way. There is enough meaning to go around. But
groups frequently hoard that meaning. How that might occur is discussed
in Chap. 3 . In the end, trauma i s the loss of meaning to life.
Chap. 4 addresses the puzzling phenomenon of intergenerational
trauma, as it is called. Intergenerational trauma happens when one gen-
Description:This book examines the social contexts in which trauma is created by those who study it, whether considering the way in which trauma afflicts groups, cultures, and nations, or the way in which trauma is transmitted down the generations. As Alford argues, ours has been called an age of trauma. Yet, n
