Discipline, Diagnose & Punish A Critical Analysis Of Ptsd Diagnostication Amongst Syrian Migrants In Jordan

Yale University

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January 2020

Discipline, Diagnose & Punish: A Critical Analysis Of Ptsd

Diagnostication Amongst Syrian Migrants In Jordan

Erik Kramer

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Kramer, Erik, "Discipline, Diagnose & Punish: A Critical Analysis Of Ptsd Diagnostication Amongst Syrian

Migrants In Jordan" (2020). Yale Medicine Thesis Digital Library. 3925.

https://elischolar.library.yale.edu/ymtdl/3925

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Discipline, Diagnose & Punish: A Critical Analysis of PTSD Diagnostication amongst

Syrian Migrants in Jordan

A Thesis Submitted to the

Yale University School of Medicine

in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the

Degree of Doctor of Medicine

by

Erik James Kramer

2020

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Diagnose, Discipline & Punish: A Critical Analysis of PTSD Diagnostication amongst

Syrian Migrants in Jordan

Erik Kramer, Catherine Panter-Brick, Aniyizhai Annamalai. Department of Psychiatry,

Yale University, School of Medicine, New Haven, CT.

This qualitative project seeks to explore sociopolitical factors influencing post-traumatic

stress disorder (PTSD) diagnostication in Syrian migrants living in Jordan. Interviews

were performed with twenty-three key informants, comprised of clinicians,

organizational staff, and scholars, using semi-structured techniques which were analyzed

with grounded theory analytic approaches. The results illuminate the complex social

forces governing the practice of PTSD diagnostication in the Syrian migrant population

in Jordan, with a focus on the effects of financial pressures. This is the first study to

report extensively on the financial pressures affecting PTSD diagnostication in this

setting. These data served as rooted substrate for a critical theory-informed secondary

analysis through the dyad of Foucault’s concept of the carceral archipelago and the

concept of abolition geography from black radical scholarship. The analysis suggests that

the phenomenon of overdiagnostication of PTSD in Syrian migrants represents an

instance of both totalitarian and colonialist instrumentalization of psychiatry.

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Acknowledgements

Funding for this work was provided by the Yale University School of Medicine, the Yale

University MacMillan Center, and the Yale University Department of Anthropology. The

contributions of Andres Barkil-Oteo and Rana Dajani are acknowledged for their insights

into the complexities of trauma and guidance on conducting research in Jordan. The

knowledge and patience of the many interviewees and their contacts were invaluable to

this project.

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Table of Contents

Title Page 1

Abstract 2

Acknowledgements 3

Table of Contents 4

Key Terminology 5

Introduction 7

Methodology 12

Results 15

Discussion 30

References

Appendix A

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