Presentation Information
[SY-109-02]Class, Liminality, Borders & Migrations: Lessons from Trauma for the Future of Cultural Psychiatry
*Vincenzo Di Nicola1, John Farnsworth2 (1.University of Montreal(Canada), 2.New Zealand Association of Psychotherapists (NZAP)(New Zealand))
Keywords:
social class,liminality,borders,migration
We address the future of Cultural Psychiatry (CP) as a social psychiatrist (VDN) and a sociologist (JF) practising psychotherapy. Trauma binds three aspects of the “situated social” shaping this future (Bemme & Béhague, 2024).
Class – “The still hidden injuries of class”: Lessons from sociology and social psychiatry centre on social class (Sennett & Cobb, 1993) and SDH (Marmot & Bell, 2012). Issue: How does CP obscure social class?
Liminality – “Threshold people”: Lessons of Cultural Family Therapy (CFT)(Di Nicola, 1997) revolve around poles of liminality and communitas (Turner, 2017). CFT conducts threshold therapy with threshold people. Thresholds risk trauma and threaten a family's tripartite functions of cultural transmission, adaptation, and cohesion. Issue: Globally, multicultural societies have reached tipping points risking widespread fragmentation and estrangement in the sociocultural pluriverse (Kothari et al., 2019). CFT’s challenge is to embrace new forms of community and care to reduce the traumas of alienation and indifference.
Borders & migration – “The figure of the migrant”: Lessons from migration and border conflicts call for a new psychology (kinopsychology) and definition of politics (kinopolitics) based on movement (kino). The “figure of the migrant” is the dominant political figure of our time (Nail, 2015). Issue: This sociocultural pluriverse gives rise to alternative “epistemologies of the south” (Santos, 2016) and the geopolitics of the Global South (Di Nicola, 2020).
The “binding knot” through these issues is trauma, psychiatry’s new “sublime object,” replacing schizophrenia (Woods, 2011). Culturally, trauma is the “trace left by suffering” (Adorno, 2003), a broader and more readily identified predicament. Trauma appears in the hidden injuries of class, across invisible communities of outsiders and amongst threshold people making the figure of the migrant its emblematic face. Trauma thus becomes a sociopolitical subject, beyond psychiatry, challenging how we understand identity, belonging, rights, and humanitarian reason (Fassin, 2011).
Class – “The still hidden injuries of class”: Lessons from sociology and social psychiatry centre on social class (Sennett & Cobb, 1993) and SDH (Marmot & Bell, 2012). Issue: How does CP obscure social class?
Liminality – “Threshold people”: Lessons of Cultural Family Therapy (CFT)(Di Nicola, 1997) revolve around poles of liminality and communitas (Turner, 2017). CFT conducts threshold therapy with threshold people. Thresholds risk trauma and threaten a family's tripartite functions of cultural transmission, adaptation, and cohesion. Issue: Globally, multicultural societies have reached tipping points risking widespread fragmentation and estrangement in the sociocultural pluriverse (Kothari et al., 2019). CFT’s challenge is to embrace new forms of community and care to reduce the traumas of alienation and indifference.
Borders & migration – “The figure of the migrant”: Lessons from migration and border conflicts call for a new psychology (kinopsychology) and definition of politics (kinopolitics) based on movement (kino). The “figure of the migrant” is the dominant political figure of our time (Nail, 2015). Issue: This sociocultural pluriverse gives rise to alternative “epistemologies of the south” (Santos, 2016) and the geopolitics of the Global South (Di Nicola, 2020).
The “binding knot” through these issues is trauma, psychiatry’s new “sublime object,” replacing schizophrenia (Woods, 2011). Culturally, trauma is the “trace left by suffering” (Adorno, 2003), a broader and more readily identified predicament. Trauma appears in the hidden injuries of class, across invisible communities of outsiders and amongst threshold people making the figure of the migrant its emblematic face. Trauma thus becomes a sociopolitical subject, beyond psychiatry, challenging how we understand identity, belonging, rights, and humanitarian reason (Fassin, 2011).