Your browser doesn't support javascript.
loading
Show: 20 | 50 | 100
Results 1 - 11 de 11
Filter
Add more filters










Publication year range
1.
Cult Med Psychiatry ; 2023 Nov 30.
Article in English | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-38036935

ABSTRACT

This paper presents evidence that some-but not all-religious experts in a particular faith may have a schizophrenia-like psychotic process which is managed or mitigated by their religious practice, in that they are able to function effectively and are not identified by their community as ill. We conducted careful phenomenological interviews, in conjunction with a novel probe, with okomfo, priests of the traditional religion in Ghana who speak with their gods. They shared common understandings of how priests hear gods speak. Despite this, participants described quite varied personal experiences of the god's voice. Some reported voices which were auditory and more negative; some seemed to describe trance-like states, sometimes associated with trauma and violence; some seemed to be described sleep-related events; and some seemed to be interpreting ordinary inner speech. These differences in description were supported by the way participants responded to an auditory clip made to simulate the voice-hearing experiences of psychosis and which had been translated into the local language. We suggest that for some individuals, the apprenticeship trained practice of talking with the gods, in conjunction with a non-stigmatizing identity, may shape the content and emotional tone of voices associated with a psychotic process.

2.
Transcult Psychiatry ; : 13634615231191980, 2023 Aug 15.
Article in English | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-37583306

ABSTRACT

There has been relatively little work which systematically examines whether the content of hallucinations in individuals diagnosed with schizophrenia varies by cultural context. The work that exists finds that it does. The present project explores the way auditory hallucinations, or "voices," manifest in a Russian cultural context. A total of 28 individuals, diagnosed with schizophrenia, who reported hearing voices at the Republican Clinical Psychiatric Hospitals in Kazan, Russia, were interviewed about their experience of auditory hallucinations. The voices reported by our Russian participants did appear to have culturally specific content. Commands tended to be non-violent and focused on chores or other activities associated with daily life (byt). Many patients also reported sensory hallucinations involving other visions, sounds, and smells which sometimes reflected Russian folklore themes. For the most part, religious themes did not appear in patients' auditory vocal hallucinations, though nearly all patients expressed adherence to a religion. These findings support research that finds that the content, and perhaps the form, of auditory hallucinations may be shaped by local culture.

3.
Open Mind (Camb) ; 5: 91-99, 2021.
Article in English | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-34746617

ABSTRACT

Are religious beliefs psychologically different from matter-of-fact beliefs? Many scholars say no: that religious people, in a matter-of-fact way, simply think their deities exist. Others say yes: that religious beliefs are more compartmentalized, less certain, and less responsive to evidence. Little research to date has explored whether lay people themselves recognize such a difference. We addressed this question in a series of sentence completion tasks, conducted in five settings that differed both in religious traditions and in language: the United States, Ghana, Thailand, China, and Vanuatu. Participants everywhere routinely used different verbs to describe religious versus matter-of-fact beliefs, and they did so even when the ascribed belief contents were held constant and only the surrounding context varied. These findings support the view that people from diverse cultures and language communities recognize a difference in attitude type between religious belief and everyday matter-of-fact belief.

5.
Nat Hum Behav ; 5(10): 1358-1368, 2021 10.
Article in English | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-34446916

ABSTRACT

How do concepts of mental life vary across cultures? By asking simple questions about humans, animals and other entities - for example, 'Do beetles get hungry? Remember things? Feel love?' - we reconstructed concepts of mental life from the bottom up among adults (N = 711) and children (ages 6-12 years, N = 693) in the USA, Ghana, Thailand, China and Vanuatu. This revealed a cross-cultural and developmental continuity: in all sites, among both adults and children, cognitive abilities travelled separately from bodily sensations, suggesting that a mind-body distinction is common across diverse cultures and present by middle childhood. Yet there were substantial cultural and developmental differences in the status of social-emotional abilities - as part of the body, part of the mind or a third category unto themselves. Such differences may have far-reaching social consequences, whereas the similarities identify aspects of human understanding that may be universal.


Subject(s)
Cognition , Emotional Intelligence , Perception , Sensation , Adult , Child , Cross-Cultural Comparison , Ethnopsychology , Female , Human Development , Humans , Interpersonal Relations , Male , Mind-Body Relations, Metaphysical , Social Behavior
6.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A ; 118(5)2021 02 02.
Article in English | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-33495328

ABSTRACT

Hearing the voice of God, feeling the presence of the dead, being possessed by a demonic spirit-such events are among the most remarkable human sensory experiences. They change lives and in turn shape history. Why do some people report experiencing such events while others do not? We argue that experiences of spiritual presence are facilitated by cultural models that represent the mind as "porous," or permeable to the world, and by an immersive orientation toward inner life that allows a person to become "absorbed" in experiences. In four studies with over 2,000 participants from many religious traditions in the United States, Ghana, Thailand, China, and Vanuatu, porosity and absorption played distinct roles in determining which people, in which cultural settings, were most likely to report vivid sensory experiences of what they took to be gods and spirits.


Subject(s)
Culture , Emotions , Spirituality , Adult , Cross-Cultural Comparison , Humans
7.
Schizophr Bull ; 45(45 Suppl 1): S24-S31, 2019 02 01.
Article in English | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-30715545

ABSTRACT

That trauma can play a significant role in the onset and maintenance of voice-hearing is one of the most striking and important developments in the recent study of psychosis. Yet the finding that trauma increases the risk for hallucination and for psychosis is quite different from the claim that trauma is necessary for either to occur. Trauma is often but not always associated with voice-hearing in populations with psychosis; voice-hearing is sometimes associated with willful training and cultivation in nonclinical populations. This article uses ethnographic data among other data to explore the possibility of multiple pathways to voice-hearing for clinical and nonclinical individuals whose voices are not due to known etiological factors such as drugs, sensory deprivation, epilepsy, and so forth. We suggest that trauma sometimes plays a major role in hallucinations, sometimes a minor role, and sometimes no role at all. Our work also finds seemingly distinct phenomenological patterns for voice-hearing, which may reflect the different salience of trauma for those who hear voices.


Subject(s)
Auditory Perception/physiology , Hallucinations/etiology , Hallucinations/physiopathology , Psychological Trauma/physiopathology , Psychotic Disorders/physiopathology , Hallucinations/classification , Humans , Psychological Trauma/complications , Psychotic Disorders/complications
8.
Schizophr Bull ; 40 Suppl 4: S213-20, 2014 Jul.
Article in English | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-24936082

ABSTRACT

A number of studies have explored hallucinations as complex experiences involving interactions between psychological, biological, and environmental factors and mechanisms. Nevertheless, relatively little attention has focused on the role of culture in shaping hallucinations. This article reviews the published research, drawing on the expertise of both anthropologists and psychologists. We argue that the extant body of work suggests that culture does indeed have a significant impact on the experience, understanding, and labeling of hallucinations and that there may be important theoretical and clinical consequences of that observation. We find that culture can affect what is identified as a hallucination, that there are different patterns of hallucination among the clinical and nonclinical populations, that hallucinations are often culturally meaningful, that hallucinations occur at different rates in different settings; that culture affects the meaning and characteristics of hallucinations associated with psychosis, and that the cultural variations of psychotic hallucinations may have implications for the clinical outcome of those who struggle with psychosis. We conclude that a clinician should never assume that the mere report of what seems to be a hallucination is necessarily a symptom of pathology and that the patient's cultural background needs to be taken into account when assessing and treating hallucinations.


Subject(s)
Culture , Hallucinations/ethnology , Religion and Psychology , Culturally Competent Care , Hallucinations/psychology , Hallucinations/therapy , Humans
9.
Transcult Psychiatry ; 50(5): 707-25, 2013 Oct.
Article in English | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-23793786

ABSTRACT

Many social scientists attribute the health-giving properties of religious practice to social support. This paper argues that another mechanism may be a positive relationship with the supernatural, a proposal that builds upon anthropological accounts of symbolic healing. Such a mechanism depends upon the learned cultivation of the imagination and the capacity to make what is imagined more real and more good. This paper offers a theory of the way that prayer enables this process and provides some evidence, drawn from experimental and ethnographic work, for the claim that a relationship with a loving God, cultivated through the imagination in prayer, may contribute to good health and may contribute to healing in trauma and psychosis.


Subject(s)
Faith Healing , Psychotic Disorders , Religion and Psychology , Stress Disorders, Traumatic , Stress, Psychological , Symbolism , Female , Humans , Imagination , Social Support
10.
Cult Med Psychiatry ; 36(3): 493-513, 2012 Sep.
Article in English | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-22547245

ABSTRACT

This essay examines the spaces across societies in which persons with severe mental illness lose meaningful social roles and are reduced to "bare life." Comparing ethnographic and interview data from the United States and India, we suggest that these processes of exclusion take place differently: on the street in the United States, and in the family household in India. We argue that cultural, historical, and economic factors determine which spaces become zones of social abandonment across societies. We compare strategies for managing and treating persons with psychosis across the United States and India, and demonstrate that the relative efficiency of state surveillance of populations and availability of public social and psychiatric services, the relative importance of family honor, the extent to which a culture of psychopharmaceutical use has penetrated social life, and other historical features, contribute to circumstances in which disordered Indian persons are more likely to be forcefully "hidden" in domestic space, whereas mentally ill persons in the United States are more likely to be expelled to the street. However, in all locations, social marginalization takes place by stripping away the subject's efficacy in social communication. That is, the socially "dead" lose communicative efficacy, a predicament, following Agamben, we describe as "bare voice."


Subject(s)
Ill-Housed Persons , Mental Disorders/ethnology , Social Alienation , Social Marginalization , Cross-Cultural Comparison , Culture , Family Relations/ethnology , Humans , India , Socioeconomic Factors , United States
11.
Am J Psychiatry ; 165(1): 15-20, 2008 Jan.
Article in English | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-18086748

ABSTRACT

Many people who struggle with psychotic disorder often refuse offers of help, including housing, extended by mental health services. This article uses the ethnographic method to examine the reasons for such refusal among women who are homeless and psychiatrically ill in the institutional circuit in an urban area of Chicago. It concludes that such refusals arise not only from a lack of insight but also from the local culture's ascription of meaning to being "crazy." These data suggest that offers of help-specifically, diagnosis-dependent housing-to those on the street may be more successful when explicit psychiatric diagnosis is downplayed.


Subject(s)
Ill-Housed Persons/psychology , Psychotic Disorders/psychology , Treatment Refusal/psychology , Anthropology, Cultural/methods , Attitude to Health , Ethnicity/psychology , Ethnicity/statistics & numerical data , Female , Ill-Housed Persons/statistics & numerical data , Humans , Illinois/ethnology , Psychiatric Status Rating Scales , Psychotic Disorders/diagnosis , Psychotic Disorders/ethnology , Residential Treatment , Sex Factors , Terminology as Topic , Treatment Refusal/ethnology , United States/ethnology , Urban Population/statistics & numerical data
SELECTION OF CITATIONS
SEARCH DETAIL
...