Volume 5, Issue 19 , October 2015, , Pages 155-182
Abstract
The purpose of this study is to answer these essential questions: how the narrative is made? How does it work? How does it describe the status of wellbeing or illness, and how and based on what mechanism would it be capable to predict and control of human conditions? At last, the objective is to answer ...
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The purpose of this study is to answer these essential questions: how the narrative is made? How does it work? How does it describe the status of wellbeing or illness, and how and based on what mechanism would it be capable to predict and control of human conditions? At last, the objective is to answer this question that how narratives construct the reality. The current study is organized in theoretical analysis framework and based on argumentative and deductive methods founded on discourse analysis. As a qualitative method, discourse analysis provides an analysis of the text. Text in this literature can be a written text as well as a theory and also a social reality. Language can be considered in two ways. In the synchronized form, language is studied in a specific time unit and in a specific timeless situation, the other one is the diachronized form in which the development of language during a time is studied. Narrative is made through the synchronized and diachronized movement of language. This process is dependent on language and dialogic conversation. Narrative is expressed and becomes coherent and integrated in dialogic process. Narrative is neither an outer-mind (the first world) issue as narrative realism claims, nor an inter-mind one (the second world) as proposed by postmodernism and constructionism. Language is both the subject and the issue, which is formulated during dialogic process and discursive context and settles down in the third world. Narratives are organized into dialogic form and help construct the narrative self.
Background: Cultural psychology is a new discipline covering a universalistic intercultural version derived from a specific historical and cultural discourse. Since Kleinman’s major revision (1988), cultural psychopathology has been reconsidered with the aim of updating the previous reviews, assessment ...
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Background: Cultural psychology is a new discipline covering a universalistic intercultural version derived from a specific historical and cultural discourse. Since Kleinman’s major revision (1988), cultural psychopathology has been reconsidered with the aim of updating the previous reviews, assessment of conceptualizations and current methods, recognition of index trends, conceptual progressions, particularly changes in the definition of culture, studying both specific and common culture trends, the role of culture in psychiatric diagnosis for DSM-V and the World Health Organization report. In the new version, some cases of diseases such as depression and schizophreniaare included. Objective: The present research aims to show that mental illness is of a linguistic structure and study the illness as a cultural issue. Method: The method applied in this research wasthat of discourse analysis. Discourse analysis, as a method of qualitative research, analyzes language and speech. The module of discourse analysis is narrative. A narrative is a cultural text, or scientific theory or social act. In discourse analysis, the researcher tries to recognize the underlying narratives of discourses through analyzing language and speech as well as interpreting approaches and theories. Studying discourse patterns created during usage of discursive resources, the analyst aims to identify the sources of similarities and differences. Results: In recent years, research on cultural psychopathology has turned to an important area of study. The most important issue in cultural psychology and cultural psychopathology is to become aware of the definition of culture as specific discourse, and its role in in defining, clarifying and specifying mental illnesses. Cultural psychopathology focuses on language and the social global structure of language. It is in the light of language that we can reach to an integrated conceptualization of mental illness as a social and cultural construct. Conclusion: The ultimate goal of cultural psychopathology is to reduce pain and to improve people’s lives. Our modified definition of culture led to an analysis of signs and resources of cultural psychopathology in various levels of individual, family, society, and the expanded social system ones, which are all required for reaching this aim. Furthermore, culture is considered as a dynamic, variable and discursive process that is formed by role-playing of language in the social construct.