Mental health in the war on terror : culture, science, and statecraft / Neil Krishan Aggarwal.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Aggarwal, Neil Krishan, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Prisoners of war--Psychology--United States.

Prisoners of war.

Terrorism--Psychological aspects--United States.

Terrorism.

Veterans--Psychology--United States.

Veterans.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (231 p.)

Place of Publication:

New York : Columbia University Press, [2015]

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Neil Krishan Aggarwal's timely study finds that mental-health and biomedical professionals have created new forms of knowledge and practice in their desire to understand and fight terrorism. In the process, the state has used psychiatrists and psychologists to furnish knowledge on undesirable populations, and psychiatrists and psychologists have protected state interests.Professional interpretation, like all interpretations, is subject to cultural forces. Drawing on cultural psychiatry and medical anthropology, Aggarwal analyzes the transformation of definitions for normal and abnormal behavior in a vast array of sources: government documents, professional bioethical debates, legal motions and opinions, psychiatric and psychological scholarship, media publications, and policy briefs. Critical themes emerge on the use of mental health in awarding or denying disability to returning veterans, characterizing the confinement of Guantánamo detainees, contextualizing the actions of suicide bombers, portraying Muslim and Arab populations in psychiatric and psychological scholarship, illustrating bioethical issues in the treatment of detainees, and supplying the knowledge and practice to deradicalize terrorists. Throughout, Aggarwal explores this fascinating, troublesome transformation of mental-health science into a potential instrument of counterterrorism.

Contents:

Mental health, culture, and power in the war on terror

Bioethics and the conduct of mental health professionals in the war on terror

The meanings of symptoms and services for Guantanamo detainees

Depictions of Arabs and Muslims in psychodynamic scholarship

Depictions of suicide bombers in the mental health scholarship

Knowledge and practice in war on terror deradicalization programs.

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

9780231538442

0231538448

OCLC:

979739584