Training Theories of Mind in Post-conflict Northern Uganda

ABSTRACT

A great number of foreign NGOs have established programs in northern Uganda to treat mental ill health following the armed conflict. In this article, I explore how NGOs train local Acholi counselors to work with psychiatric notions of trauma and practice counseling with local clients. The training of counselors and the practice of psychotherapeutic counseling cultivates specific notions of what trauma is and how the mind works. I show how psychiatric concepts are introduced and practiced in new settings and reshaped by local concerns, while I contribute theoretically by framing these within an attentional learning approach.

KEYWORDS:

• Acholi
• mental health intervention
• theory of mind
• trauma
• Uganda

Acknowledgments

I am grateful to the NGO employees in northern Uganda for letting me follow and learn from them, and to Gulu University for providing ethical clearance for my research. An earlier version of this article was presented at the Trajectories of Displacement Workshop (Gulu, March, 2019) held by researchers from the Center for Public Authority and International Development (CPAID), London School of Economics and Political Science. I would like to thank particularly Tim Allen, Holly Porter and Julian Hopwood for including me in their work and the workshop participants for their helpful contributions. For reading and commenting on earlier versions of the article, I am particularly grateful to Tanya Luhrmann and Costanza Torre. I also highly appreciate the editorial guidance of Medical Anthropology’s Editor Lenore Manderson and Editorial Assistant Victoria Team.

Notes

1. Within the ranks of the LRA, leading officers were also addressed as lapwony (Finnström 2008: 26).

2. In recent psychotraumatology literature, appetitive aggression is defined as the “perpetration of violence and/or the infliction of harm to a victim for the purpose of experiencing violence-related enjoyment” (Weierstall and Thomas 2011: 1).

3. On practicing forgiveness – timo kica in Acholi language – after the armed conflict, see Meinert et al. (2014).

Additional information

Funding

This research was funded by the Center for Public Authority and International Development (CPAID) at the London School of Economics and Political Science, under the Trajectories of displacement: A multi-disciplinary exploration into return and social repair after mass displacement in northern Uganda ES/P004911/1.

Notes on contributors

Lars Williams

Lars Williams is a Visiting Fellow at the Firoz Lalji Centre for Africa at The London School of Economics and Political Science.