The Harmony of illusions : inventing post-traumatic stress disorder / Allan Young.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Young, Allan, 1938-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Post-traumatic stress disorder--Philosophy.

Post-traumatic stress disorder.

Social epistemology.

Post-traumatic stress disorder--Case studies.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (338 p.)

Edition:

Course Book

Place of Publication:

Princeton, N.J. : Princeton University Press, c1995.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

As far back as we know, there have been individuals incapacitated by memories that have filled them with sadness and remorse, fright and horror, or a sense of irreparable loss. Only recently, however, have people tormented with such recollections been diagnosed as suffering from "post-traumatic stress disorder." Here Allan Young traces this malady, particularly as it is suffered by Vietnam veterans, to its beginnings in the emergence of ideas about the unconscious mind and to earlier manifestations of traumatic memory like shell shock or traumatic hysteria. In Young's view, PTSD is not a timeless or universal phenomenon newly discovered. Rather, it is a "harmony of illusions," a cultural product gradually put together by the practices, technologies, and narratives with which it is diagnosed, studied, and treated and by the various interests, institutions, and moral arguments mobilizing these efforts. This book is part history and part ethnography, and it includes a detailed account of everyday life in the treatment of Vietnam veterans with PTSD. To illustrate his points, Young presents a number of fascinating transcripts of the group therapy and diagnostic sessions that he observed firsthand over a period of two years. Through his comments and the transcripts themselves, the reader becomes familiar with the individual hospital personnel and clients and their struggle to make sense of life after a tragic war. One observes that everyone on the unit is heavily invested in the PTSD diagnosis: boundaries between therapist and patient are as unclear as were the distinctions between victim and victimizer in the jungles of Southeast Asia.

Contents:

Front matter

Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction

PART I: THE ORIGINS OF TRAUMATIC MEMORY

One. Making Traumatic Memory

Two. World War I

PART II: THE TRANSFORMATION OF TRAUMATIC MEMORY

Three. The DSM-III Revolution

Four. The Architecture of Traumatic Time

PART III: POST-TRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDER IN PRACTICE

Five. The Technology of Diagnosis

Six. Everyday Life in a Psychiatric Unit

Seven. Talking about PTSD

Eight. The Biology of Traumatic Memory

Conclusion

Notes

Works Cited

Index

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references: p. [299]-319 and index.

ISBN:

9786612935183

9781400808854

1400808855

9781282935181

1282935186

9781400821938

1400821932

9781400813940

1400813948

OCLC:

705527010