Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Figures
- List of Tables
- List of Contributors
- Foreword by Robert Jay Lifton
- Preface
- List of Abbreviations
- Introduction: Inscribing Trauma in Culture, Brain, and Body
- SECTION I NEUROBIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES ON TRAUMA
- SECTION II CLINICAL PERSPECTIVES ON TRAUMA
- SECTION III CULTURAL PERSPECTIVES ON TRAUMA
- 15 Trauma, Adaptation, and Resilience: A Cross-Cultural and Evolutionary Perspective
- 16 Bruno and the Holy Fool: Myth, Mimesis, and the Transmission of Traumatic Memories
- 17 Failures of Imagination: The Refugee's Predicament
- 18 Trauma, Culture, and Myth: Narratives of the Ethiopian Jewish Exodus
- 19 Posttraumatic Politics: Violence, Memory, and Biomedical Discourse in Bali
- 20 Terror and Trauma in the Cambodian Genocide
- 21 Trauma in Context: Integrating Biological, Clinical, and Cultural Perspectives
- Epilogue: Trauma and the Vicissitudes of Interdisciplinary Integration
- Glossary
- Index
- References
17 - Failures of Imagination: The Refugee's Predicament
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 27 July 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Figures
- List of Tables
- List of Contributors
- Foreword by Robert Jay Lifton
- Preface
- List of Abbreviations
- Introduction: Inscribing Trauma in Culture, Brain, and Body
- SECTION I NEUROBIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES ON TRAUMA
- SECTION II CLINICAL PERSPECTIVES ON TRAUMA
- SECTION III CULTURAL PERSPECTIVES ON TRAUMA
- 15 Trauma, Adaptation, and Resilience: A Cross-Cultural and Evolutionary Perspective
- 16 Bruno and the Holy Fool: Myth, Mimesis, and the Transmission of Traumatic Memories
- 17 Failures of Imagination: The Refugee's Predicament
- 18 Trauma, Culture, and Myth: Narratives of the Ethiopian Jewish Exodus
- 19 Posttraumatic Politics: Violence, Memory, and Biomedical Discourse in Bali
- 20 Terror and Trauma in the Cambodian Genocide
- 21 Trauma in Context: Integrating Biological, Clinical, and Cultural Perspectives
- Epilogue: Trauma and the Vicissitudes of Interdisciplinary Integration
- Glossary
- Index
- References
Summary
There is such a thing as absolute power over narrative. Those who secure this privilege for themselves can arrange stories about others pretty much where, and as, they like. Just as in corrupt, totalitarian regimes, those who exercise power over others can do anything.
(Achebe, 2000)INTRODUCTION
Understanding stories of suffering and healing depends on a shared world of assumptions, ideas, values, and motivations. When stories deviate from our expectations for plausibility, intelligibility, order, and coherence, we have several options: We can expand our vision of the possible; we can interpret the narratives as defective, indicating cognitive dysfunction or some other form of psychopathology; or we can question the motives and credibility of the narrator.
The clinical encounter is a microcosm of the larger social world, and the interpretation of stories told in the clinical setting depends crucially on knowledge of that wider social sphere. When the social worlds of patient and clinician are substantially different or unshared, the stories they tell each other may be mutually unintelligible. In this chapter, I examine this problem of the intelligibility and credibility of clinical narratives in a special setting: the psychiatric assessment of asylum seekers in the context of a cultural consultation service (Kirmayer, Groleau, Guzder, Blake, & Jarvis, 2003). This example throws into relief some basic questions about the grounding of clinical narratives and the social consequences of “clinical epistemology.”
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Understanding TraumaIntegrating Biological, Clinical, and Cultural Perspectives, pp. 363 - 381Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2007
References
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