Mass Psychological Trauma and PTSD: Epidemic Illusion?

In recent years, leading medical journals have published a series of commentaries (Bracken, 2001; Bracken, Giller, &Summerfield, 1995; Summerfield, 1998; Van Ommeren, Saxena, &Saraceno, 2005) challenging the notion that mass trauma exerts an adverse effect on the mental health of populations from non-Western cultures. The diagnostic category, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), has attracted particular criticism, the key issue being the nosologic validity of that diagnosis when applied across cultures (Summerfield, 1999, 2001; Terheggen, Stroebe, &Kleber, 2001).