International journal of mental health systems
January 1, 2014
Marjolein Van Duijl, Wim Kleijn, Joop De Jong
41 citations
In southwestern Uganda, spirit possession is a common way people express distress linked to traumatic experiences. Among 119 patients referred by traditional healers, two-thirds initially sought medical help for physical symptoms, which later developed into dissociative possession symptoms. After an average of two help-seeking steps, 99% found satisfactory explanations and effective healing from traditional healers. Healing sessions involved summoning possessing agents to identify underlying problems, such as neglect of rituals, family responsibilities, the call to become a healer, witchcraft, grief, and land conflicts. The findings suggest that traditional healing can restore connections across social and spiritual worlds without necessarily addressing individual traumatic experiences directly.
Social psychiatry and psychiatric epidemiology
September 1, 2013
Marjolein Van Duijl, Wim Kleijn, Joop De Jong
30 citations
Spirit possession is a common way Ugandans express distress. This study examined how local possession symptoms align with DSM-IV and proposed DSM-5 diagnostic criteria. Using interviews and a symptom checklist with 119 possessed patients, researchers identified two symptom dimensions: passive (e.g., feeling influenced by outside powers, strange dreams, hearing voices) and active (e.g., shaking, talking in a spirit's voice). Local symptoms matched DSM-IV possession trance disorder and DSM-5 dissociative identity disorder criteria, but passive-influence experiences were not well captured. The authors argue that these experiences should be more explicitly described in DSM-5 criteria and question the proposed merging of possession trance disorder into dissociative identity disorder.
Culture, medicine and psychiatry
September 1, 2020
Devon E Hinton, Ria Reis, Joop De Jong
17 citations
Among Cambodian refugees at a psychiatric clinic, ghost encounters are a central part of how trauma is experienced and expressed. Fifty-four percent of patients had been bothered by ghost encounters in the past month. The severity of being bothered by ghosts was strongly correlated with PTSD severity. Among those bothered by ghosts, 85.2% had PTSD, compared to 15.4% of those not bothered, an odds ratio of 31.8. Ghost visitations occurred in three states of consciousness: during full sleep (dreams), hypnagogia (sleep paralysis or hallucinations while falling asleep or waking), and full waking (hallucinations, visual aura, chills, or leg cramps).