This talk will discuss Javanese Cultural Psychology based primarily on research that followed the massive earthquake in the Special Region of Yogyakarta and Central Java in May 2006. The talk will discuss published research and film material focused on the needs of children in the Javanese cultural setting after a heavy earthquake. It will also draw on material using cultural arts and sociodrama produced by local residents of a district of Yogyakarta, advocating for the integration of physical and mental health services as a form of applied psychology developed using Java's rich cultural background.

Johana Endang Prawitasari (PhD, University of Arizona, 1985) is Emeritus Professor of Clinical Psychology at Universitas Gadjah Mada (UGM) in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. Since 2012 she has served as Professor of Psychology at Universitas Kristen Krida Wacana (UKRIDA) in Jakarta, Indonesia and was appointed to manage the Center for Research and Community Service from 2012-2016. She served as the Dean of Faculty of Psychology and Faculty of Social Studies and Humanity from 2016-2018. From 2018-2020, she was Vice Rector for Academic Affairs. She is now in charge of developing the Professional Psychology Program at the Faculty of Psychology, UKRIDA. Her experience in research collaborations with international scholars on cultural psychology was published by Springer in 2014. She is currently developing interdisciplinary approaches to behavioural technology, an interest that she has had throughout her career, which involves using both the micro and macro applied aspects of clinical psychology.

Discussant: Robert B. Lemelson

Dr. Robert Lemelson is an adjunct professor of Anthropology at UCLA whose work explores the relationship of culture and history to trauma, psychiatric illness, structural and gender-based violence, and their relationship to subjectivity and phenomenology. He is also a visual anthropologist and ethnographic filmmaker with over 25 years of experience conducting fieldwork. He has completed over 15 films on a wide range of topics including mental illness, polygamy and gender-based violence, the sex trade, genocide, kinship and ritual, neurodiversity, and trance and possession. He is also the co-editor of three volumes with Cambridge University Press: Understanding Trauma: Integrating Biological, Clinical, and Cultural Perspectives, Re-Visioning Psychiatry: Cultural Phenomenology, Critical Neuroscience, and Global Mental Health, and Culture, Mind and Brain: Emerging Concepts, Models and Applications.  His newest book, Widening the Frame: Visual Psychological Anthropology Perspectives on Trauma, Gendered Violence and Stigma in Indonesia, was published in 2021 by Palgrave Press.

Organizer: Seinenu M. Thein-Lemelson is a Lecturer in the Department of Anthropology Department at UCLA.

Sponsor(s): Center for Southeast Asian Studies