Rethinking Mental Health and the Afterlife of War | Orkideh Behrouzan | TEDxUCLWomen

TW: mentions of war, violence and trauma

Dr Orkideh Behrouzan is a physician, medical anthropologist, anthropologist of science and technology, author of Prozak Diaries, as well as a poet and storyteller. In 2014 Orkideh launched the initiative ‘Beyond Trauma: Emergent Agendas for Understanding Mental Health in the Middle East,’ an interdisciplinary project for bringing together different experts - from artists, policy makers to practitioners and scholars - to create an inclusive approach to psychological well being.

In this insightful and awe-inspiring talk, Orkideh looks at memories of childhood and war to disrupt how we conventionally think about mental health, the Middle East, and the relationship between individual and collective memories.

@OBehrouzan Orkideh Behrouzan is a physician, medical anthropologist, anthropologist of science and technology, and the author of Prozak Diaries: Psychiatry and Generational Memory in Iran (2016, Stanford University Press). She is a 2015-16 fellow of the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) and the winner of the 2011 Kerr Award from the Middle Eastern Studies Association. She is also a poet and writer, in Persian and English.

Behrouzan was pursuing a PhD in Genetics at the University of Oxford, before deciding to move to the US to study Anthropology at MIT. She was an academic in the US before moving to London. She currently teaches at the Department of Anthropology at SOAS, University of London.

In 2014, she initiated the collaborative and multi-cited project Beyond ‘Trauma’: Emergent Agendas for Understanding Mental Health in the Middle East. This interdisciplinary project aims to bring together scholars, artists, practitioners, and policymaker, towards an inclusive approach to psychological wellbeing, by foregrounding the compelling role of diverse cultural practices, historical conditions, moral contexts, and medical pedagogies in shaping the afterlife of social ruptures. In light of today’s rapid transformations in the region and the movement of displaced individuals, the project responds to a pressing need to rethink the psychopolitics of wellbeing and health in the Middle East. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx