Meaning in Psychosis: A Veteran's Critique of the Traumas of Racism, Sexual Violence, and Intersectional Oppression.
Culture, medicine and psychiatry December 1, 2023 Peer reviewed DOI: 10.1007/s11013-023-09824-6 via PubMed
Summary
A Latina Veteran's psychosis is examined through clinical ethnography, drawing on user/survivor scholarship, phenomenology, cultural psychiatry, and Fanon's concept of sociogeny. The case emphasizes that understanding the meaning within psychosis requires grounding it in a person's subjective-lived experience and social world. Exploring the narratives of people experiencing psychosis fosters empathy and connection, which are prerequisites for trust and therapeutic rapport. The Veteran's stories must be contextualized in her past and ongoing experiences of racism, social hierarchy, and violence. This approach suggests a social etiology where psychosis is a complex response to life experience and a critical embodiment of intersectional oppression.
Study at a glance
| Design | case study |
|---|---|
| Sample size | 1 |
| Population | Latina Veteran experiencing psychosis |
| Key finding | Psychosis can be understood as a complex response to life experience and a critical embodiment of intersectional oppression, requiring attention to meaning grounded in subjective-lived experience and social world. |
Abstract
This clinical case study presents the case of a Latina Veteran experiencing psychosis and draws on eclectic theoretical sources, including user/survivor scholarship, phenomenology, meaning-oriented cultural psychiatry & critical medical anthropology, and Frantz Fanon's insight on 'sociogeny,' to emphasize the importance of attending to the meaning within psychosis and to ground that meaning in a person's subjective-lived experience and social world. The process of exploring the meaning and critical significance of the narratives of people experiencing psychosis is important for developing empathy and connection, the fundamental prerequisite for developing trust and therapeutic rapport. It also helps us to recognize some of the relevant aspects of a person's lived experiences. To be understood, this Veteran's narratives must be contextualized in her past and ongoing life experience of racism, social hierarchy, and violence. Engaging in this way with her narratives pushes us towards a social etiology that conceptualizes psychosis as a complex response to life experience, and in her case, a critical embodiment of intersectional oppression.