Exorcism and the Possession Syndrome
We haven’t done any psychobabble for a little while and although I’ve not received any complaints, I suspect this must have been a sad and grevious loss to your lives.
In order to redress this appalling and atrocious neglect I have an interesting piece for you.
This piece written by Dr. Stephen Diamond looks at demon possession and the recent growth in exorcisms from a psychiatric perspective.
Obviously Dr. Diamond does not view demon possession as a valid phenomena and as usual for this discipline, this piece throws up more questions than it answers.
Interestingly it’s almost as if demon possession/ exorcism presents a threat or challenge to psychiatry / psychology itself.
Still this is an interesting piece and worth a read. I’m going to feature the conclusion of the piece below (which is on page 2) and you can view page one of the piece here.
Enjoy:
Despite its continued prevalence in varying forms, most psychotherapy does not adequately treat the possession syndrome. For some bedeviled individuals, the traditional ritual of exorcism or myth of “demonic possession” serves to make more sense of their suffering than the scientific, secular, biochemical explanations and cognitive-behavioral theories proffered these days by conventional mainstream psychiatry and psychology. If psychotherapy as a healing of the soul (not just the mind) is to survive and thrive into the next century, our obsession with cognition, behavior, genetics, neurology and biochemistry must be counterbalanced by the inclusion of the spiritual and depth psychological dimension of human existence.
The truth is, most psychotherapy patients need far more than what pharmaceutical intervention and/or cognitive therapy–the two most popular so-called “evidence-based” or empirically supported modalities today–can provide. They need and deserve support and accompaniment through their painful, frightening, disorienting, perilous spiritual or existential crises, their “dark night of the soul.” They need a psychologically meaningful method to confront their metaphorical devils and demons, their repressed anger or rage, and the existential reality of evil. They need a secular spiritual psychotherapy willing to ask the right questions. In a time where so many have lost faith in God, rejected organized religion, yet still seek something transpersonal to believe in, something spiritual, something transcendental or supernatural, the notion of demonic possession has diabolically tempting appeal. For to believe that the Devil and his demons can take possession of one’s body, mind and soul is to find evidence also of God’s existence. And to make meaning from meaninglessness. This “will to meaning,” as existential psychiatrist Viktor Frankl called it, is a fundamental human drive, one which abhors a meaningless “existential vacuum.” For those who have lost faith, the myth of demonic possession can–in addtion to providing a possibility of attributing responsibility for our darkest, most despicable or spiritually unacceptable emotions, impulses and evil deeds to something or someone other than ourselves– paradoxically provide a path back to God, since God and the Devil are but two sides of the same spiritual coin. Unless psychology can provide a better or at least equally satisfying, meaningful alternate explanation of the possession syndrome–and a more effective way to deal with it– belief in demonic possession and the practice of exorcism are bound to escalate.
Tags: Religion Society, Science & Medical, Theology Doctrine Philosophy
August 30th, 2010 at 4:17 pm
Oh dear. The writer seems to be rather mixed up. And his statement that psychiatry has to come up with an answer to this is
jawdropping. Has he not read Jung or countless other practitioners? One wonders where he got his qualifications. This is very much basic stuff.
I was intrigued enough to try to link through to the original article but the link no longer seesm to work (for me anyway).
I always enjoy your “psychobabble” posts though webmaster, so please do keep them coming!
August 30th, 2010 at 5:11 pm
Oh that was odd Jim. It appears they changed the links to the article for some reason.
Anyway, have re-found the original article and updated the links so hopefully works fine now.
I’ve got such a weakness and penchant for psychobbable, I just can’t help myself. I was having a chat with someone online and they said that social “sicentists” (note the quotation marks) were modern day confidence tricksters, which is rather harsh.
He said that research from the social scientist world is:
…..just rationalisation of the opinions of those conducting the work – which some might also call vanity
He was in a bad mood though….
They do make some sweeping generalisations at times though.
August 30th, 2010 at 8:14 pm
It’s the sort of piece that makes me thing the poor bloke is having a bit of a crisis himself. I looked at the link and it definitely says he’s a psychologist, presumably with formal qualifications. You wouldn’t think so from what he writes.
However he writes from Lala land, which leads me to wonder whether this is just a novelty designed to obtain either money or notoriety. A lot of very dubious therapy starts in that part of the world.
I seem to remember hearing that exorcism can be an effective treatment if the patient is a) convinced he’s possessed and b) convinced an exorcism will do the trick. Another victory for the placebo effect, which is a very impressive mechanism.
I do know that patients from different cultures present psychiatric symptoms in very different ways. People with a West Indian background sometimes end up sectioned by the NHS purely because they express their feelings with what seems to us pure melodrama, whereas people from the Indian subcontinent typically express depression by means of solely physical symptoms, usually gastrointestinal and therefore often get overlooked.