| This dissertation is based on fieldwork conducted in New York City and Copenhagen. From my research interviewing clinicians and spending time in psychosocial programs that provide psychological and social services to survivors of political violence, I explore what happens when Western psychological expertise takes as its concern suffering caused from torture, war or other human rights abuses. The clients participating in these psychosocial programs come from all parts of the world, and psychological knowledge and therapeutic practices have had to address cultural differences as well as the implications of the political causes of trauma.; Often social science theory has framed critiques of psychological interventions in terms of psychologization. This type of critique assumes that psychology depoliticizes, dehistoricizes and individualizes. It is argued that psychological explanations reduce complex social, political and historical processes to psychological mechanisms and can place the burden of change on the victims. Though these critiques are important, what I examine is how the practices of psychology work in and through the capacities of individuals to enable them to become autonomous, empowered and self-determining citizen/selves. The structuring and productive aspects of psychological techniques, and their relationship to governance in liberal democracies, is thus one focus of my analysis. I also explore the tensions and dilemmas that emerge when bodies and minds are the focus of intervention, and when memory and trauma become a political issue in therapy. My multi-sited approach has also allowed me to examine the proliferation of trauma interventions from a transnational perspective. |
