Chair: Cristian Montenegro.
Historically, occupational health has identified workplace injuries as physical. However, with the global rise of psychiatric language, new conceptions of psychological injury are emerging. What do these mental health injuries enact concerning historical and current labour issues? What roles do workers, occupational healthcare professionals, and ‘psy’ specialists play in the emergence of these types of injuries? Using Chile as a case study, Dr Bowen’s talk examines the increase in mental health claims submitted to employee insurance companies and analyses how various social actors, including workers, ‘psy’ specialists, insurers, and state bureaucrats, interact in shaping the concept of psychological injury within a labour environment characterized by deep-rooted hierarchical relationships, neoliberal policies, and a lack of social security. Ultimately, the talk explores how recognizing the psyche as injured generates new meanings and social dynamics that impact workers’ rights, status, and the historical and ongoing power struggles within the labour and political landscape.
Dr Sofía Bowen is a Chilean medical anthropologist with a PhD from the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine at King’s College London, United Kingdom. She also holds a BSc in Social Anthropology from the University of Chile and an MSc in Medical Anthropology from the University of Edinburgh. Dr Bowen co-founded the Platform for Social Research in Mental Health in Latin America (PLASMA), an initiative fostering collaboration and reflection on the political, cultural, and social dimensions of mental health in the region. Currently, she works as an associate lecturer and research fellow at the School of Anthropology at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile and the Center For Cancer Prevention and Control (CECAN). Her research interests focus on the intersection between mental health and psychiatry, health governance and citizenship, and socio-political processes in Chile and Latin America.