This page was translated automatically from Turkish. Read the original

This page is an AI-assisted Turkish summary of the study presented at the 26th World Congress of Psychiatry. The study belongs to the presenting authors; please refer to the original source when citing it.

Toward a decolonial and systemic approach to trauma: a critique of individualized psychiatric models in postcolonial contexts

Toward a decolonial and systemic approach to trauma: critiquing individualized psychiatric models in post-colonial contexts

Trauma should be understood as a social, cultural, and political phenomenon embedded in collective memory and relations of domination, rather than as an internal disorder of the individual.

This study aims to critically examine the limitations of dominant psychiatric approaches to trauma and discuss the relevance of a systemic and decolonial framework for understanding postcolonial and intergenerational trauma in communities of African descent; contemporary understandings of trauma rely largely on Western, individual-centered, and biomedical frameworks and inadequately address the collective, historical, and structural dimensions associated with slavery, colonialism, and racial violence. The methodology consisted of a critical, interdisciplinary literature review informed by decolonial and critical psychiatry perspectives; the analysis drew on the work of Frantz Fanon, Edouard Glissant, and Roberto Beneduce, as well as contemporary critiques of the DSM, trauma theory, and epigenetic models of intergenerational transmission. The review highlights three key limitations: classical psychoanalytic concepts can reproduce Eurocentric assumptions when applied universally to post-slavery societies with different family and cultural structures. Second, the diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder, rooted in Western military experiences, tends to individualize suffering and render structural violence and historical responsibility invisible. Third, although valuable, epigenetic approaches risk biologizing historical trauma and diverting attention from ongoing social inequalities and political accountability. In conclusion, a decolonial approach to trauma requires a shift from individualized pathology to contextually situated understandings of suffering; recentering knowledge systems may contribute to culturally appropriate, ethically grounded, and transformative psychiatric practices.

All WCP 2026 summaries