Transcultural Psychiatry

A quote from the Dutch press agency NIS, 4 August 2007

A district court in The Hague on Friday advised the State to have a Moroccan criminal investigated by a ‘transcultural’ psychiatrist. This met the demand of the criminal. The Moroccan was convicted in 1995 of attempted manslaughter of his wife. He was given one year in jail plus forced psychiatric treatment for an unspecified period (TBS).

Meanwhile, the TBS has already gone on for 11 years, but in all this time, not a minute has been spent on therapy. This is because the Moroccan is refusing to be treated by ‘ordinary’ psychiatrists. Because he refuses to cooperate with treatment, the TBS clinic wanted to put him in a long-stay department. This is where people are put who are considered untreatable and unlikely ever to be able to return to society.

The criminal wants to show via ‘transcultural investigation’ that he is not disturbed and must therefore be released. The summary injunction judge in The Hague acceded to the criminal’s wishes Friday. The judge did say that he expects the Moroccan to cooperate with investigation now both by a psychiatrist specialising in intercultural aspects of psychiatry and by a regular doctor.

Sigmund Freud was a Jew, not a Muslim

Islam does not recognize the field of psychiatry. Muslims are not swayed, or otherwise influenced by psychiatric analysis. Psychiatric discussion is absent from Arab society. Everything is the "Will of Allah."

The Moroccan criminal in this story has either been deviously advised by people who know how to exploit such cultural gulfs, or that Moroccan has more brains than he has thus far been credited with.

His refusal to be treated by ‘ordinary’ psychiatrists is entirely consistent with his Islamic world view. An Imam would normally be his 'psychotherapist.'

I have been invited to convert to Islam more than 20 times (rough count). I remain a Christian. This does not prevent me from agreeing with our Moroccan criminal on one important matter: Psychiatry is 7/10s quackery, and another candidate for the pseudo-scientific hall of fame, although it does become useful when the State wishes to 'control' the masses.

Simply changing one's environment (removing all adverse stimuli) is the best way to heal the mind. For more serious cases, little or nothing can be done. The mind quickly loses it's ability to drastically re-configure itself with age. Past your 20th birthday; major repairs become increasingly unlikely, unless chemotherapy is used (which defeats the original purpose of psychiatry anyway).

Questions

Who decides from which culture the transcultural psychiatrist is chosen from?

Does the Moroccan criminal get to choose a Moroccan transcultural psychiatrist,and if not why not?

Is there even such a thing as a Moroccan transcultural psychiatrist?

Shouldn't that be a multicultural-transcultural psychiatrist?

And finally,do I really care?