This dissertation develops a meaning oriented model of the relationship between culture and the subjective experience of psychosis, by analyzing interviews and other ethnographic data collected over the course of a 12 month fieldwork in Istanbul, Turkey. The theoretic framework for the study is introduced on the basis of detailed discussions of the notion of schizophrenia, the questions of Turkey and Turkish identity, and the basic theories of semiotics. Derived from the theoretic framework, four principles are then proposed as fundamental features of the relationship between culture, meaning systems, subjectivity and psychosis, as follows. (1) the inseparability of the notions of subject, culture, and meaning system.(2) the simultaneous synchronicity and diachnoricity of sign systems. (3) the heteroglossic nature of private associative networks and narratives. (4) the conglomerate composition of subjective autobiographical narratives. Based on these principles, an analytic approach is then developed and applied towards in-depth cultural semiotic analyses of data collected from interviews with three psychotic inpatients, their families and their clinicians. The results of the analyses demonstrate strong evidence for an interrelational model of culture, meaning, subjectivity and psychosis, as well as a fundamental presence of diachronic modality in patterns of association and networks of meaning in patients' discursive efforts to re-establish psychic wholeness and self-identity. Based on these findings and in reference to the earlier theoretical principles, the results are formalized to conclude three principal modes of 'continuity': (1) the mutual continuity of private experience and collective meaning, which reflects the importance of understanding private psychological and subjective phenomena as contextualizated processes always embedded within collective systems of meaning and power, such as culture and politics. (2) the continuity of psychotic and non-psychotic modes of subjectivity, which further highlights the embeddedness of psychotic models of experience and behavior in local systems of meaning and power. (3) the continuity of systems in time, which highlights the temporal dimension of private and collective modes of experience, and thus emphasizes the significance of considering not only private life histories, but also local historical and political trajectories in clinical and intellectual assessment of subjective and psychological experiences such as psychosis.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.102155 |
| Date | January 2005 |
| Creators | Rahimi, Sadeq. |
| Publisher | McGill University |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Coverage | Doctor of Philosophy (Division of Social & Transcultural Psychiatry.) |
| Rights | © Sadeq Rahimi, 2005 |
| Relation | alephsysno: 002329041, proquestno: AAINR25233, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest. |
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