TRAUMA THEORIST KALI TAL ON WHY PTSD IS FAR MORE PERVASIVE THAN MOST PEOPLE THINK, THE HORRIFYING TRUTH ABOUT TRAUMA’S GLOBAL CAUSES + WHY THE DRUG INDUSTRY DOESN’T WANT YOU TO FIGURE IT OUT (MF GALAXY 149) – 2017 December 18


WHY WORKING WITH OTHER PEOPLE IS YOUR BEST SHOT TO RELIEVE PTSD AND FIGHT ITS LOCAL AND GLOBAL CAUSES


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If you watch movies or TV shows such as Rambo or The Punisher and everything in between, you’ve probably seen how Hollywood explores PTSD, or post-traumatic stress disorder. According to US entertainment, PTSD is the horror that former soldiers experience because of war: flashbacks and rage attacks triggered by cars backfiring and footfalls at night.
But what if I told you that most of what you’ve been told about PTSD is wrong? That the causes are far more common and complex, and they’re in homes and on streets across the world? That “classic” symptoms such as flashbacks are extremely rare? That the US military is spending a gigantic fortune to cure PTSD, but not for humanitarian reasons? And that the only real cure to PTSD is probably prevention?
To discuss these questions today, let’s hear from Cultural and American Studies scholar Kali Tal, who spoke with me by Skype from her home in Bern, Switzerland on December 8, 2017.
With combined interests including historiography, cultural anthropology, and African American studies, Tal has spent decades researching the complex causes of PTSD and our dire need to stop traumatising people in the first place. She’s a qualitative researcher and scientific editor at the University of Bern, and the author of Worlds of Hurt: Reading the Literatures of Trauma. And if you’d like to read it for free, keep listening.
In today’s episode of MF GALAXY, we discuss:
  • Why feminists pushed for a PTSD diagnosis for years before the psychological establishment accepted it, and why it didn’t work as they’d hoped
  • Why PTSD is so widespread that in some places, the question should be “Who doesn’t have PTSD?”
  • The class, gender, and cultural biases built into the PTSD establishment
  • The disturbing reasons why the US military and drug corporations are so interested in a cure, and the quack therapies being peddled as effective
  • And why working with other people is your best shot to relieve PTSD and fight its global causes





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