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Term for socially scripted and appropriate spectrum of human behavior in a given culture
Normality
How are shamanic states of consciousness distinct from psychotic states?
-Willful induction
-Attached to a particular context at induction
-Shamans can differentiate the different states
Types of behavior that are pathological wherever and whenever they occur (Tourette's Syndrome)
Absolutism
Self prejudice and negtive self assessments from knowledge of how one is perceived in a larger social group
Internalized stigma
Feelings, the awareness of interpretation of them, agency to act on them, desire and motivation to do so, the habits of how to act or react to them;
cultural and social formations that shape, organize, and provoke modes of perception, affect, thought, desire, fear, etc. that animate acting subjects
subjectivity
psychological development is a social process dependent on an empathetic environment with healthy interpersonal attachments;
unattuned environment impedes self development;
caretaker treatment teaching developing self hot to understand their needs, emotions, how to form connections
self psychology
essence of a phenomena could be objectively defined and exists as a universal truth at the basis of every human's experience of that phenomena
Edmund Husserl's transcendental phenomena
"bodily experience and cognitive meaning making are fundamentally linked to one another through circular and reinforcing patterns of influence"
"changes in our ideas change our physiological states."
Bio-looping
Benedict's definition of "normal"
normal=morally good
Valuing only one state of consciousness, the "normal" everyday consciousness of the waking adult
Monophasic Bias
Judgments concerning pathology are necessarily relative (context matters)
Relativism
Impacts of internalized stigma
-worsened health outcomes
-impedes academic performance
-stereotype embodiments
subjectivity + cultural niche =
cultural subjectivity
-human ability to take the self as the object and be aware of your self
-part of self-organization is the tension between who you are and who people believe you should be
-socio-culturally situated experience of "you"
Kohut's self psychology
Interplay of content and structures of consciousness; "aboutness"
Intentionality
meaning-making processes are grounded in environments and bodies
grounded cognition
Term for spectrum of human behavior not used in a particular culture
Abnormality
Unconscious defensive transformation of an unconscious wish
Personal Defense Mechanism
Behaviors and morals must be judged by criteria relative to the cultural context
cultural relativism
"...Register of everyday life and practical engagement that defines what matters for ordinary men and women."
Moral experience
Obeyesekere's 3 points about cultural subjectivity
1) shaped by cultural symbols
2)become meaningful in subjective life
3)maintenance/transformation of culture mediated by dynamic psychic processes
self-objects
Phenomenology is less of an objective science and more of an investigation into the experience of being itself;
phenomena cannot be fully divorced from the person experiencing it, perception is embedded in the person and their positionality
Martin Heidegger's Existential Phenomenology
The same neural architecture that is operating when an activity is performed or physically experiences is also activated when thinking about that activity or event
Grounded cognition theory
Ruth Benedict's definition of "deviance"
Personal defense mechanisms protect the individual from these two feelings:
1) frustration/anxiety from an unfulfilled wish-impulse-desire
2) remorse/guilt from fulfilling an immoral wish-impulse-desire
Abnormal mental experiences and behaviors that deviate from sociocultural norms and expectations
psychopathology
psychobiological reality of stigma
Sociocultural system that either develops in local contexts or in indigenized to local contexts
religion
-selective response to elements of a child's innate potential and expression of needs
-different virtual selves constructed, psychic structures laid
-need for idealization, mirroring, twinship in a self object
Empathetic attunement
practical knowledge as distinguished from declarative or semantic forms of knowledge
Merleau-Ponty's Praktognosia
Particular characteristics and traits of the body interact with the particular characteristics in certain ways that make things possible or not possible
Affordances
A person is "normal" if they are able to adjust to the expectations of their culture
Benedict's definition of "adjustment"
culturally constituted defense mechanisms
Demonstrably false behavior held to be true
Cognitive Distortion
emotional influencing of the innermost and unconscious world of people
Moral experiences
external cultural symbol used to nourish or define the identity and sense of self in a particular way
subjectification
Mirroring
He noticed the deep cultural influence in the way people perceived of themselves as persons, and even the way people held and used their bodies to interact with the world. (moi vs. je self)
Marcel Mauss
accumulated embodied knowledge from repeated experience with their social and material environments over time lead to physiological changes that regluate other internal systems such as cardiovascular and neurochemical
Embodied trajectories
Adjustment not sufficient--cultures can become "sick societies" wherein the least capable of adaptation to other people and circumstances are the "fittest"
Devereux's thoughts on "adjustment"
Cause of intrapsychic conflict by avoiding the real issue
culturally constituted defense mechanisms
Stimuli perceived to be other than they are
Perceptual distortion
What was most at stake for Gusti and her community?
Her: belonging, fulfilling role of good daughter
Community: self control, traditional behavior
Acceptance was possible when her community learned her behavior was not a matter of self control
internal experience being projected onto an external cultural symbol typically in an unconscious attempt to relieve psychic tension or distress
objectification
need to see caretaker as knowledge, in control, competent
Idealizing
How individuals move, align, balance, orient, and situate their bodies in space and in coordination with the actions of others;
tied to socialization
techniques of the body
Study the experience of experience itself
Phenomenology
Acting in ways that are consistent with social norms and values without internalizing them as your own.
External Adjustment
5 levels of congnitive salience
1) Acquaintance
2)Understanding
3) Acceptance
4)Enactment
5)Embodiment
Inappropriate emotional responses
Affective distortion
Good's 7 factors to consider when studying pyschopathology
1. "major" pathologies-->the ways cultures interpret these and native categories of illness
2. "phenomenological reality"--> lived embodied and mental experience of an aspect of reality (illness, event, daily activity)
3. experienced as separate from the self and requires cultural models to interpret
4. disrupts accepted perception and understanding of the self, social relations, social environment
5. Situated discourse--> intersectionality of experience
6. must be contextualized within a life course perspective
7. Research should consider "effects of culture on the course and outcome of psychopathology"
pre-existing idioms do not fit enough people so change is driven internally;
personal symbols become public symbols with changing emotional significance
Obeyesekere and culture change
need to feel sense of belonging, kinship, likeness with others
Twinship/Alter Ego
-Body as ground of all experience. Not an object to be studied in relation to culture, but the site of culture itself. The subject.
-All experience is to some extent structured and some extent malleable. Culture orients and provides meaning to the object.
Embodiment in anthropology
Both acting from and believing deeply in social norms and values
Internal Adjustment
The individual is seen as equipped to exercise full control over their lives and future destinies through hard work, perseverance, and the government-assured equal opportunities for all
American individualism
Interventions that have been proven to be effective throug scientific trials and clinically significant data
Evidence Based Therapy
interconnection of phyical-emotional-sociocultural domains, constructed through intersubjectivity and cultural expectation
sociosomatic reticulum
ascetics are psychotics;
perceptual, cognitive, affective distortions;
women are not orienting to symbols but the demons themselves
Spiro's response to Obeyesekere's ascetics
5 steps of Inside-Out Process
1) Brokenness
2) Belonging
3) Containment
4) Self-critique
5)Surrender
Attention and perception filter experiences of our cultural and physical environments which in turn influence how we attend to our perceptions and perceive our environment
Somatic modes of attention
Devereux's "Ethnic Psychotic"
Atypical trauma-->
Unavailable marginal role-->
deviance/psychopathology
A sign in which the relationship between the sign and the referent is arbitrary; meaning is not based on resemblances (icon) or contiguity (index)
anthropological symbols
CBT Results among Lhotshampas
-Improved brain-mind activity
-Decreased heart-mind activity
-CBT experience similar to traditional man baadne practice
an "optional" cultural symbol whose form is shared but whose meaning lies in the deep motivations of a particular individual
personal symbol
religion is a culturally-constituted defense mechanism (won't provide actual healing for psychic distress but may help deal with the conflict)
Spiro's response to religion
biomedicine, religious healing, ethnomedicine/traditional healing, complementary/Alternative medicine
Medical pluralism
Patterns to sensations, smells, sounds are culturally and environmentally patterned
Embodied Cultural Variation
Devereux's 2 problems with Shamanism
1) ego-dystonic; trance resembles psychotic/dissociative symptoms
2) culture dystonic; community is fearful and distrustful
A symbol whose form and meaning re shared by members of a given group
Cultural/public symbol
DBT results among Lhotshampas
- Dyan dine (Brain mind function, attention and focus)
-Dyan garne (meditation)
Form and meaning are restricted to the experience of one individual
private symbol
Religion can heal underlying conflicts; can provide resolution
Obeyesekere's thoughts on religion
"the study of phenomena as they appear to the consciousnesses of an individual or a group of people; study of things as they appear in our lived experiences."
Phenomenology
People who occupy certain roles or categories experience themselves in terms of those roles and categories