 |
Robert B.
Lemelson, Ph.D. Visiting Assistant Professor of Psychology, UCLA |
|
Contact Information UCLA Department
of Psychology
Dr. Lemelson is an anthropologist who received his M.A. from the University of Chicago, and Ph.D. from the Dept. of Anthropology, UCLA. He is currently a lecturer of Developmental Psychology at UCLA. He was a Fulbright scholar in Indonesia in 1996-1997, has worked for the World Health Organization, and is additionally trained as a clinical psychologist. His area of specialty is Southeast-Asian Studies, psychological anthropology and transcultural psychiatry. He is currently finishing a documentary based on his research in Indonesia Dr. Lemelson's research centers on the intersection of culture, personal experience and psychopathology. This work has involved both clinical experience in schools, hospitals and clinics, working with mentally ill children and adults. It also involves fieldwork experience with various Southeast Asian populations. He engaged in six months of fieldwork with a Cambodian refugee population, focusing on adjustment, acculturation and post-traumatic stress. As a Fulbright scholar in Indonesia, he did two separate but related research projects. One was a ten year outcome study of patients who had had an acute psychotic episode in the mid 1980's, following the hypothesis that outcome for severe mental disorders is better in the developing world. The second study was a pilot study to find cases of obsessive-compulsive disorder and Tourette's syndrome in Indonesia, to provide data for proving or disproving the Pediatric Autoimmune Neuropsychiatric Disorders Associated with Streptococcal Infections (PANDAS) hypothesis. Dr. Lemelson
has recently finished a documentary film based on his research,
filmed in both Java and Bali, and is finishing two others. He is
also the President of the Foundation for Psychocultural Research
(The FPR), which funds interdisciplinary research in Neuroscience,
Psychiatry and Anthropology. He is also currently a director of
The Lemelson Foundation, a family foundation whose mission is to
promote innovation and invention in American society.
Selected References Lemelson R. (2004) "Traditional Healing and it's Discontents: Efficacy and Traditional Therapies of Neuropsychiatric Disorders in Bali, in Medical Anthropology Quarterly 18(1):48-76. Lemelson R, Suryani L.K. (2003) "Cultural Formulation of Psychiatric Diagnoses: The Spirits, Penyakit Ngeb and the Social Suppression Of Memory: A Complex Clinical Case from Bali", submitted to Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry Lemelson R. (2003) "Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder in Bali: The Cultural Shaping of a Neuropsychiatric Disorder" in Transcultural Psychiatry, Vol.40(3) (pp.377-408) Lemelson R. (2001) "Strange Maladies," Psychology Today, December 2001
|
|