Leveraging Ambiguity in the Clinic: Mild TBI and Veterans' Forgetting. Issue 2 (17th February 2021)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Zogas, Anna
• Is Part Of: Medical anthropology. Volume 40:Issue 2(2021)
• Page Start: 141
• Page End: 154
• Publication Date: 2021-02-17
• Subjects: United States -- attention -- clinical medicine -- mild traumatic brain injury -- military veterans -- therapy; Medical anthropology -- Periodicals; 362.1
• DOI: 10.1080/01459740.2020.1798422
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0145-9740

Abstract

ABSTRACT: US military veterans who have histories of mild traumatic brain injury (mild TBI) are evaluated and treated in specialized clinics in the Veterans Health Administration (VA). In this ethnography of one such clinic, I explore the problem of veterans' forgetting. I focus on doctors' strategy of actively drawing attention to the ambiguous causes of forgetting to reposition past head injuries as among many possible explanations, including posttraumatic stress, pain, and everyday distractions. This leveraging of ambiguity as therapy highlights both the utility of and tensions inherent in the expansive clinical gaze of therapeutic medicine.