Luh Ketut Suryani

A Spiritual-Hypnosis Assisted Treatment of Children with PTSD after the 2002 Bali Terrorist Attack

Abstract The aim of this study was to assess the effectiveness of a spiritual-hypnosis assisted therapy (SHAT) for treatment of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in children. All children, age 6–12 years (N=226; 52.7% females), who experienced the terrorist bomb blasts in Bali in 2002, and subsequently were diagnosed with PTSD were studied, through a longitudinal, quasi-experimental (pre-post test), single-blind, randomized control design. Of them, 48 received group SHAT (treatment group), and 178 did not receive any therapy (control group). Statistically significant results showed that SHAT produced a 77.1% improvement rate, at a two-year follow up, compared to 24% in the control group, while at the same time, the mean PTSD symptom score differences were significantly lower in the former group. We conclude that the method of spiritual-hypnosis is highly effective, economic, and easily implemented, and has a potential for therapy of PTSD in other cultures or other catastrophic life-threatening events.

Psychiatrist, traditional healer and culture integrated in clinical practice in Bali.

This paper considers the psychiatrist-traditional healer relationship in clinical management of mental disorders in Bali. It also concerns the role of sociocultural factors in the etiology and management of mental disorder. The basic concepts and therapeutic strategies of Western psychiatry co-exist with the beliefs and methods of traditional healers. Often psychiatrists and traditional healers are involved with the same patients. A clinical case study of an episode of mass dissociative disorder (trance state) in which psychiatrists acted as consultants illustrates the integration of concepts of Western psychiatry and Balinese culture in the diagnostic evaluation and therapeutic strategies.

Culture and mental disorder: The case of bebainan in Bali

This is an investigation of bebainan, a disorder which Balinese believe to be caused by sorcery. Most attacks are brief, lasting % MathType!MTEF!2!1!+-% feaafiart1ev1aaatCvAUfeBSjuyZL2yd9gzLbvyNv2CaerbuLwBLn% hiov2DGi1BTfMBaeXatLxBI9gBaerbd9wDYLwzYbItLDharqqtubsr% 4rNCHbGeaGqiVu0Je9sqqrpepC0xbbL8F4rqqrFfpeea0xe9Lq-Jc9% vqaqpepm0xbba9pwe9Q8fs0-yqaqpepae9pg0FirpepeKkFr0xfr-x% fr-xb9adbaqaaeGaciGaaiaabeqaamaabaabaaGcbaWaaSGaaeaaca% aIXaaabaGaaGinaaaaaaa!3778!\[{\raise0.7ex\hbox{

Suicide in paradise: aftermath of the Bali bombings

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Random Number Generation in Bilingual Balinese and German Students: Preliminary Findings from an Exploratory Cross-Cultural Study:

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Cultural Considerations in the Treatment of Mental Illness Among Sexually Abused Children and Adolescents: The Case of Bali, Indonesia

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Spiritual-Hypnosis Assisted Therapy: A New Culturally-Sensitive Approach to the Treatment and Prevention of Mental Disorders

}}\]–1 hour. The most common symptoms are sudden feelings of confusion, crying, screaming and shouting, followed by inability of the sufferer to control his or her actions. Most sufferers are aware of their behavior during an attack, and remember the occurrence afterwards.The investigator interviewed all the members (296 persons) in the compound of the descendants of the former royal family of Klungkung, among whom 27 people had suffered bebainan attacks. The victims, mostly females, offspring of endogamous marriges, experienced their first attack between the ages of 16 and 30. Analysis of the psychological and social pressures acting on these women suggests that bebainan attacks provide sufferers with an opportunity to release feelings of frustration and anger without risk of widespread disapprobation or stigmatization. However, bebainan is not instrumental in altering access to resources within the restricted environment of the royal compound, nor does it empower the victim within this environment in any but the most transitory ways. Bebainan cannot be regarded as a form of psychosis, even of the reactive or atypical type, it is neither an organic mental disorder, nor a form of neurosis. Instead bebainan can be considered a form of dissociation which is only understandable in the local context of Balinese culture.

The Balinese people : a reinvestigation of character

BACKGROUND The relationship between the Bali (Indonesia) bombings of October 2002 and suicide has not previously been investigated, despite anecdotal evidence of the economic and psychological consequences of these attacks. METHOD Suicide rates were calculated over the period 1994-2006 in three Bali regencies to determine whether suicide increased in the period following the first Bali bombings. Poisson regression and time-series models were used to assess the change in suicide rates by sex, age and area in the periods before and after October 2002. RESULTS Suicide rates (age-adjusted) increased in males from an average of 2.84 (per 100 000) in the period pre-2002 to 8.10 in the period post-2002, and for females from 1.51 to 3.68. The greatest increases in suicide in the post-2002 period were in the age groups 20-29 and 60 years, for both males and females. Tourist arrivals fell significantly after the bombings, and addition of tourism to models reduced relative risk estimates of suicide, suggesting that some of the increase may be attributable to the socio-economic effects of declines in tourism. CONCLUSIONS There was an almost fourfold increase in male suicide risk and a threefold increase in female suicide risk in the period following the 2002 bombings in Bali. Trends in tourism did not account for most of the observed increases. Other factors such as indirect socio-economic effects and Balinese notions of collective guilt and anxieties relating to ritual neglect are important in understanding the rise in suicide in the post-2002 period.

Trance and Possession in Bali: A Window on Western Multiple Personality, Possession Disorder, and Suicide

Verbal random number generation is a procedurally simple task to assess executive function and appears ideally suited for the use under diverse settings in cross-cultural research. The objective of this study was to examine ethnic group differences between young adults in Bali (Indonesia) and Kiel (Germany). 50 bilingual healthy students, 30 Balinese and 20 Germans, attempted to generate a random sequence of the digits 1 to 9. In Balinese participants, randomization was done in Balinese (native language L1) and Indonesian (first foreign language L2), in German subjects in the German (L1) and English (L2) languages. 10 of 30 Balinese (33%), but no Germans, were unable to inhibit habitual counting in more than half of the responses. The Balinese produced significantly more nonrandom responses than the Germans with higher rates of counting and significantly less occurrence of the digits 2 and 3 in L1 compared with L2. Repetition and cycling behavior did not differ between the four languages. The findings highlight the importance of taking into account culture-bound psychosocial factors for Balinese individuals when administering and interpreting a random number generation test.

Treating the untreated: applying a community-based, culturally sensitive psychiatric intervention to confined and physically restrained mentally ill individuals in Bali, Indonesia

Childhood and adolescence sexual abuse can have long-lasting and devastating effects on personal and interpersonal growth and development. Sexually abused children tend to exhibit higher rates of poor school performance, aggressive behavior, PTSD (posttraumatic stress disorder), or depressive symptomatology, as well as social and relational deficits (e.g., age-inappropriate sexual behaviors). The trauma following such abuse can further affect neurodevelopment and physiology, aggravating mental or physical problems in adulthood. Early symptom recognition and appropriate interventional applications are important factors in successfully treating or even preventing the development of mental disorders in such cohorts. A central element of effective treatment is the selection of treatment targets. Cultural considerations are rarely or peripherally considered in sexual abuse treatment strategies. Western-trained psychiatrists and clinical psychologists tend to overlook or underestimate such factors in cross-cultural settings, resulting in interventional efforts that may interfere with traditional approaches to healing, and potentially contributing to a transgenerational cycle of trauma. By using Bali (Indonesia) as a focal culture, in this article we discuss the effects of cultural elements and showcase their potential contribution and systematic implementation into a holistic and sensitive interventional model for the treatment of mental illness in childhood and adolescence sexual traumatization.