Mental Health in the War on Terror: Culture, Science, and Statecraft

From shell shock to PTSD, mental health medicine has long concerned itself with the shocks of war. In this debut, psychiatrist Aggarwal examines how the practice of mental health has been deployed as a political weapon, and how the discipline has struggled to understand the unique cultural problems of the “war on terror.” The questions he asks include whether clinicians should work in military facilities that torture, and if a detainee’s symptoms in response to torture might preclude him from his own defense. Aggarwal thoroughly interrogates the available scholarship, charging the mental health profession with creating an account of suicide bombing and other terrorist acts that doesn’t sufficiently consider cultural and historical factors. This book may not be particularly accessible for the lay reader, but the questions it poses are valuable, difficult, and without easy answers—for clinicians, military leaders, or even civilians, all of whom must live with a medical culture deeply marked by the war on terror. (Jan.)