OBJECTIVE Spirit possession is a phenomenon frequently occurring in war-torn countries. It has been shown to be an idiom of distress entailing dissociative symptoms. However, its association with trauma exposure and trauma-related disorders remains unclear. This study aimed to explore subjective disease models and the relationship between pathological spirit possession and trauma-related disord...

universal across cultures and is documented in many ethnographic studies. Khalifa &Hardie assert that possession states can be understood only through a combination of biological, anthropological, sociological, psychopathological and experimental perspectives. Psychiatrist and anthropologist Roland Littlewood sees possession as the belief that an individual has been entered by an alien spirit o...

Reviewing anthropological analyses of possession forms cross-culturally and drawing from recent advances in cognitive psychology, this paper attempts to explain recurrent features of spirit possession. Spirit possession concepts fall into broadly two varieties: one that entails the transformation or replacement of identity (executive possession) and one that envisages possessing spirits as (the...

In Nepal, spirit possession is a common phenomenon occurring both in individuals and in groups. To identify the cultural contexts and psychosocial correlates of spirit possession, we conducted a mixed-method study in a village in central Nepal experiencing a cluster of spirit possession events. The study was carried out in three stages: (1) a pilot study consisting of informal interviews with p...

Phenomena of spirit possession have been documented in many cultures. Some authors have argued that spirit possession is a type of psychopathology, and should be included as a category in diagnostic manuals of mental disorders. However, there are hardly any quantitative studies that report the prevalence of spirit possession on a population level and that provide evidence for its validity as a ...

A house to house survey was conducted for a population of 1158 in west Karnataka to determine the prevalence of possession syndrome and to study people's attitude towards the same. One year period prevalence was found to be 3.7%. 90% of the respondents believed in possession. Women more than men shared this belief. Spirit possession was reported to be troublesome but God possession as helpful. ...

Possession by a spirit or demon or God is an age old phenomenon which is still being reported from many countries all over the world. Possession syndrome is defined as an episodic disruption of behavior dur ing which it is presumed tha t the subject 's personality has been replaced by that of a spirit or God (Wintrob, 1973 ; Wijesinghe et al., 1976). I ts manifestations, purpose and consequence...

The cross-cultural validity of dissociative possession and trance disorders is a matter of some debate, limiting research and meaningful interpretation of prevalence data. Intimate to these concerns is the status of spirit possession categories studied in the social sciences, particularly anthropology. These two categories are phenomenologically related and display similar epidemiological assoc...

Recent studies in African contexts have revealed a strong association between spirit possession and severe trauma, with inclusion into a possession cult serving at times a therapeutic function. Research on spirit possession in the Dominican Republic has so far not included quantitative studies of trauma and dissociation. This study evaluated demographic variables, somatoform dissociative sympto...

We report the findings of a programmatic series of studies designed to investigate the cognitive underpinnings of cross-culturally recurrent forms of possession belief. Possession phenomena are frequently portrayed in the anthropological literature as incompatible with common cultural assumptions and biases guiding Western notions of ‘‘self’’ and ‘‘personhood’’ and as resisting generalization a...