Fighting with Spirits: Migration Trauma, Acculturative Stress, and New Sibling Transition-A Clinical Case Study of an 8-Year-Old Girl with Absence Epilepsy.
Culture, medicine and psychiatry December 1, 2015 Dimitrios Chartonas, Ruma Bose 7 citations
Migration and acculturation processes can deeply affect children's mental health, especially when non-Western idioms of distress, such as spirit possession, are misunderstood. The case of an 8-year-old girl who immigrated to a Western multicultural environment illustrates how disorganized behavior, culturally accepted as spirit possession, emerged from migration trauma, acculturative stress, and a new sibling transition. Cultural conflict at school and bullying were key mediators. The authors argue that spirit possession deserves more attention as a culture-specific response to trauma, and that clinicians should adopt an anti-reductionist stance, integrating different explanatory frameworks and healing practices to bridge cultural divides.