From distress to disease: a critique of the medicalisation of possession in DSM-5.
Anthropology & medicine December 1, 2017 Divya Padmanabhan 8 citations
The paper critiques the DSM-5's classification of possession as a form of dissociative identity disorder, arguing that this pathologizes a condition understood as non-pathological in other contexts, such as at a temple in Kerala, South India. Based on ethnographic fieldwork, it contends that medicalizing possession converts a form of distress into a disease, reducing the temple to a culturally acceptable site for mental illness and denying alternative conceptualizations. The paper examines the DSM's singular notion of self, the distinction between pathological and non-pathological possession, and the equation of the condition with its manifestation, then briefly presents alternative views from those who heal possession at the Chottanikkara temple.