Beyond PTSD : a study of distress and subject positions in rural KwaZulu-Natal.
Loading...
Date
2005
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Abstract
The PTSD model of trauma encapsulated in the DSM has been subject to numerous
challenges concerning the model's appropriateness and applicability in the South
African context. These challenges relate specifically to specific nature of the
traumatic stressors produced by the discriminatory policies of the Apartheid regime
and the levels of political violence that permeated the entire country, especially entire
rural communities in the KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) province. This form of endemic and
incessant violence that traumatised entire communities has surpassed the DSM -IVTR's
conceptualisation of trauma. This research study aims to open up a space for
exploring alternate ways of conceptualising distress in the South African landscape of
endemic violence and incessant trauma. This study draws attention to how men and
women living in rural KZN experience and construct the meanings of their distressing
experiences using the cultural resources available to them. Focus groups were
conducted with six groups of first language isiZulu speakers from rural communities
across KZN. Focus groups included a youth group, a male leaders group, a women's
group, a group of traditional healers, a community health workers group, and a
feedback session group. The groups were conducted in isiZulu, recorded, transcribed,
and translated into English. The transcripts were interpreted using discourse analytic
theory, analysing discursive constructions of distress and the subject positions
contained within them. It was found that experiences of distress were interpreted
through the lens of a socio-cultural African worldview which differed from that
assumed by Western psychology. This worldview shaped the conceptualisation of
distress and determined specific coping strategies. Distress was interpreted as a
breakdown in the organisational matrix of life that systematically increases people's
vulnerability to a range of interwoven complex stressors endowed with social, cultural
and political meaning. These stressors perpetuate a cycle of distress that situates men
and women in diverse and predominantly disempowering subject positions, shaping
distinct experiences of trauma.
Description
Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, 2005.
Keywords
Theses--Psychology.