Filozofija i drustvo 2022 Volume 33, Issue 4, Pages: 1022-1036
https://doi.org/10.2298/FID2204022F
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Cited by
Forfeiting the paradigm of victimhood
Fatić Aleksandar 
(University of Belgrade, Institute for Philosophy and Social Theory), fatic@instifdt.bg.ac.rs
Hadžić Behzad (Center for mental Health, Ključ, Bosnia and Herzegovina), behzad.hadzic@yahoo.com
This paper is a philosophical meta-discussion of the current culture in
psychiatry and psychotherapy that focuses on trauma as the source and
predominant determinant of a large number of psychiatric complaints. Such a
culture leads to increasing, rather the decreasing, the destructive role of
traumatization and victimization throughout the life experiences of those
affected, and (as culture) is exemplified by increasing calls by influential
psychiatrists to expand the interpretative role of trauma to virtually all
our experiences of social inadequacy and personal hurt. We argue here, from
a philosophical and psychiatric point of view, that the transactions,
semantics and affects that psychiatry and psychotherapy are concerned with
in cases of trauma and victimhood are negatively affected by the culture of
using trauma as an alibi and a kind of universal explanation of
psychological dysfunctionality and suffering. We also argue that, contrary
to the current culture of a sort of idolatry of trauma, more consistent and
philosophically informed approaches to psychiatric and psychotherapeutic
intervention, based on a different interpretation of less-than-radically
adverse life experiences, might in fact reduce both the clinical occurrence
of traumatization and the actual adverse impact of self-perceived
victimization and traumatization on the prospects for achieving the goal of
‘the good life’.
Keywords: trauma, intentionality, mental states, expression, the mind, psychiatric intervention, psychiatric culture, language, attention, resilience
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