Differential executive functioning in the topology of Spirit possession or dissociative disorders: an explorative cultural study.
BMC psychiatry December 2, 2019 Samir Al-Adawi, Yahya Al-Kalbani, Sathiya Murthi Panchatcharam et al. 14 citations
Spirit possession in Oman falls into two categories: intermittent and transitory dissociative phenomena. Among 84 participants (mean age 34, 56% female, 35% with trauma history), those with intermittent possession showed greater impairment on tests of executive functioning, including verbal fluency and the Trail Making Test, compared to the transitory group. The pathogenic possession subtype independently predicted worse performance on the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test and Tower of London Test. The findings suggest that the typology of spirit possession differs on indices of executive function, with intermittent possession linked to deficits, laying groundwork for further neuropsychological study.