Navigating the Unknown

Mental Pain, Uncertainty, and Self-Isolation in Bali and Java

Datos Bibliográficos

ID7174263
AutoresFlorin Cristea (0000-0003-4236-3371, FH Münster, autor de correspondencia)
Año2025
Volumen49
Número4
Páginas1126-1149
Fecha de publicación2025-07-28
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaCulture Medicine and Psychiatry (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0165-005X • E-ISSN: 1573-076X
EditorialSpringer Science+Business Media (PUBLISHER • DE)
DOI10.1007/s11013-025-09930-7
PMID40721919
OpenAlexW4412726740
IdiomaEN
Referencias citadas66

Mental pain is commonly defined as an experience situated on a continuum between cognitive appraisal of the painful event and the affective disposition of the person experiencing it. Drawing on ethnographic material and interviews on severe psychiatric disorders in Bali and Java, I will try to understand what mental pain does to the person experiencing it, as well as to their immediate environment. To answer this question, I will first describe the salient attributes of mental pain as they emerged during my conversations with outpatients and observations of their milieu. These were a challenged “realness” of the experience of mental pain, its ability to take hold of one’s subjective experience, an elusive and relational quality, and a perceived ambiguous and indeterminate temporal dimension. Moreover, I will describe the uncertainties of people navigating a severe psychiatric disorder (health, sanative, social, and behavioral uncertainties), and I will suggest that the salient attributes of mental pain contribute to the makeup of these uncertainties. Finally, this article illustrates that the interrelated nature of mental pain and experienced uncertainties can inform certain illness behaviors, particularly instances of self-isolation

Cognition · Cognitive psychology · Isolation (microbiology · Mental health · Mental illness · Psychiatry · Salient · Situated · Social isolation · Emotions and Moral Behavior · Grief, Bereavement, and Mental Health · Mental Health Treatment and Access · Psychology · Social Psychology