{"product_id":"the-harmony-of-illusions-9780691033525","title":"The Harmony of Illusions","description":"\u003cp\u003eAs far back as we know  there have been individuals incapacitated by memories that have filled them with sadness and remorse  fright and horror  or a sense of irreparable loss. Only recently  however  have people tormented with such recollections been diagnosed as suffering from \"post-traumatic stress disorder.\" Here Allan Young traces this malady  particularly as it is suffered by Vietnam veterans  to its beginnings in the emergence of ideas about the unconscious mind and to earlier manifestations of traumatic memory like shell shock or traumatic hysteria. In Youngs view  PTSD is not a timeless or universal phenomenon newly discovered. Rather  it is a \"harmony of illusions \" a cultural product gradually put together by the practices  technologies  and narratives with which it is diagnosed  studied  and treated and by the various interests  institutions  and moral arguments mobilizing these efforts.  This book is part history and part ethnography  and it includes a detailed account of everyday life in the treatment of Vietnam veterans with PTSD. To illustrate his points  Young presents a number of fascinating transcripts of the group therapy and diagnostic sessions that he observed firsthand over a period of two years. Through his comments and the transcripts themselves  the reader becomes familiar with the individual hospital personnel and clients and their struggle to make sense of life after a tragic war. One observes that everyone on the unit is heavily invested in the PTSD diagnosis: boundaries between therapist and patient are as unclear as were the distinctions between victim and victimizer in the jungles of Southeast Asia.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"My Store","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":45646651523125,"sku":"ByrdShop_0691033528","price":51.43,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0627\/8139\/0901\/files\/9780691033525.jpg?v=1781676776","url":"https:\/\/atxbooks.com\/products\/the-harmony-of-illusions-9780691033525","provider":"ATX Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}