The Medicalisation of Incest and Abuse by Carolina Borda-Niño-Wildman

Author:Carolina Borda-Niño-Wildman [Borda-Niño-Wildman, Carolina]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780367431037
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Published: 2019-09-11T00:00:00+00:00

Sexual violence against women and psychiatry in Bolivia

Sexual violence against women (and men) has been a topic left invisible by the psychiatric literature produced in and on Bolivia. After a thorough research of all Bolivia’s currently available psychiatry journals, theses, and books held at the National Archive and Library of Bolivia, not a single piece was found on this subject.3 The same applies to Bolivia’s National Psychiatric Hospital’s archive, held both at the National Archive and Library of Bolivia (1884–1983) and at the INPGP (1902, current year), where sexual violence as an constituent of female inmates’ biographies was seldom mentioned in their clinical records, bar a very few exceptions. It is important to state that inmates’ clinical records were very scarce in information, and sometimes not filled in at all, except for basic information concerning the individual’s initial assessment, usually provided by a relative and not the inmate herself, and sometimes a record of the medication and treatment they were given over the years. However, it is important to observe that there is a silence in the documents that could contain such data. On many occasions, not even information that was taken at the first medical assessment, at the moment of hospitalisation, was recorded.

This situation was partially changed in the 1980s, as described in Chapter 2. In appearance, treatment became more consistent with the biomedical model, although the moral treatment continued to form the cornerstone of psychiatric treatment, as this ethnography has shown. The ample discretion that in real terms was, and is, given to medical and non-medical staff in relation to drug prescription and other medical procedures (doses, types of medicine, change of brands, side-effects, protocol to be followed in insulin and electroshock therapies, etc.), would lead one to think that moral treatment can include, rather than exclude, a biomedical approach to mental illness. An exploration of two cases will allow us to exemplify two possible ways of dealing with intergenerational incestuous practices within the psychiatric milieu from the end of the nineteenth century to the end of the twentieth. The first concerns the medicalisation of incestuous violence, accompanied by its euphemisation, and the other, its criminalisation.

In May 1973, Delmira Lima, a thirteen-year old girl, eldest daughter of Constancio Lima, was referred to La Paz Hospital by Oruro’s National Board for Social Development (JNDS) after being “beaten” by her widowed father. As stated in the referral letter, the “beatings” dispensed by Constancio had worsened her epileptic condition. The social worker who evaluated the case at the JNDS considered that “in relation to her father, reconciliation is rather unlikely” (ANB: IPM36). The onset of her epileptic crisis coincided with the death of her mother at the age of five. In the same referral letter, the social worker stated that Constancio “dishonestly” abused his daughter, and that, after his wife´s death, Delmira had “taken her place”, although his sexual abuse of her is registered as starting two months before the referral.

Once in La Paz, Delmira is described by a social worker as an aggressive child, especially after her epileptic crisis took place.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.