Culture, PTSD, and emotion regulation: An anthropological perspective

Abstract This chapter investigates culture, PTSD, and emotion regulation from an anthropological perspective. Such an approach is particularly relevant to this topic given how little empirical research has been conducted to date concerning the specific intersection of culture, PTSD, and emotion regulation. Moreover, we believe that the types of qualitative and ethnographic research described in the present chapter are complementary to traditional quantitative approaches to the study of emotion regulation and have the potential to greatly enhance the validity of findings from such approaches, as there is considerable evidence that cultural background and social expectations significantly impact expression, regulation, and interpretation of emotions. The present work focuses on ethnographic accounts that have the potential to shed light on how these elements come together in the lived experiences of individuals across diverse sociocultural settings.