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Updated: Aug 13, 2026

Developing Neuroimaging Phenotypes of the Default Mode Network in PTSD: Integrating the Resting State, Working Memory, and Structural Connectivity
Published on: July 1, 2014
Commentary: deconstructing critiques on the internationalization of PTSD
1Tpo Keizersgracht, 1016 Ee Amsterdam, The Netherlands. jdejong@healthnettpo.org
Abstract:
When PTSD entered the DSM, advocacy for the diagnosis was a critical part of advocacy for Vietnam veterans. Over the next two decades, the range of contexts in which this clinical concept was applied increased dramatically. In a recent article in Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry, Breslau (2004) describes PTSD as a "prominent cultural model" to account for suffering as well as the synergy between human rights or political advocacy and traumatic stress advocacy. In this article I question the sequence of steps that Breslau took to critique the internationalization of the PTSD construct. I also question Breslau's critique on our work in Nepal. Finally, I will formulate some future challenges for psychiatry and anthropology to bridge their universalistic and relativistic points of view.
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