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The Harmony of Illusions : Inventing Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder / Allan Young.

By: Material type: TextTextPublisher: Princeton, NJ : Princeton University Press, [1997]Copyright date: ©1996Edition: Course BookDescription: 1 online resource (328 p.) : 5 line drawingsContent type:
Media type:
Carrier type:
ISBN:
  • 9780691017235
  • 9781400821938
Subject(s): DDC classification:
  • 616.85/21
LOC classification:
  • RC552.P67
Other classification:
  • online - DeGruyter
Online resources: Available additional physical forms:
  • Issued also in print.
Contents:
Frontmatter -- 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 TraumaticM emory -- Conclusion -- Notes -- Works Cited -- Index
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.
Holdings
Item type Current library Call number URL Status Notes Barcode
eBook eBook Biblioteca "Angelicum" Pont. Univ. S.Tommaso d'Aquino Nuvola online online - DeGruyter (Browse shelf(Opens below)) Online access Not for loan (Accesso limitato) Accesso per gli utenti autorizzati / Access for authorized users (dgr)9781400821938

Frontmatter -- 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 TraumaticM emory -- Conclusion -- Notes -- Works Cited -- Index

restricted access online access with authorization star

http://purl.org/coar/access_right/c_16ec

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.

Issued also in print.

Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.

In English.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 30. Aug 2021)