Social science & medicine (1982)
August 1, 2012
Frank Neuner, Anett Pfeiffer, Elisabeth Schauer-Kaiser et al.
120 citations
In war-affected northern Uganda, a local form of spirit possession called cen was more common among former child soldiers than among those never abducted. Among 1,113 youths aged 12 to 25, cen was linked to extreme trauma and independently predicted worse functional outcomes—including higher suicide risk, more physical complaints, and greater aggression—even after accounting for PTSD and depression. The findings suggest that prolonged war, combined with spiritual beliefs and propaganda, can produce high rates of harmful spirit possession, and support the idea that spirit possession can be a valid trauma-related disorder in this setting.
Social science & medicine (1982)
October 1, 2019
Joanna Kempner, John Bailey
52 citations
Patient-led research is increasingly valued for its ability to produce quick results from large samples. This study examines how online health communities transform self-experimentation into a collective practice. Through a digital ethnography of an online patient-led research movement, the study focuses on participants who self-experiment with psilocybe-containing mushrooms as a treatment for cluster headache, a neurological disease with little medical research and huge unmet need. The internet's collectivizing features have collectivized self-experimentation, with group dynamics shaping individual choices of intervention, outcome reporting, data analysis, determinations of efficacy, and embodiment. This raises questions about individuals' roles in creating medical knowledge and data for crowdsourced research.
Social science & medicine (1982)
August 1, 2010
Victor Igreja, Beatrice Dias-Lambranca, Douglas A Hershey et al.
52 citations
In post-civil war Mozambique (2003-2004), a study of 941 adults assessed harmful spirit possession. Prevalence varied by severity: 18.6% of participants suffered from at least one harmful spirit, and 5.6% of those had two or more. Possessed individuals experienced greater health impairment compared to non-possessed individuals. The study used a combined quantitative-qualitative design and suggests that understanding local beliefs about spirit possession and its community prevalence is essential for designing culturally sensitive public health interventions.
Social science & medicine (1982)
January 1, 1987
T J Csordas
46 citations
Spirit possession cults are difficult to understand when only religious or only medical perspectives are used. Anglo-American research increasingly treats possession as a medical condition, while French research does not. The Afro-Brazilian candomblé cult, little studied in English, is examined through case vignettes from a Brazilian psychiatrist who is also an initiated elder. A balanced approach that considers both religious and medical motives is essential for understanding possession, and this approach aligns with the goals of medical anthropology.
Social science & medicine (1982)
February 1, 1994
L A Sharp
37 citations
Among the Sakalava of northwest Madagascar, spirit possession and madness are understood as opposite ends of a spectrum, ranging from a good, powerful, and permanent state to a destructive illness. Some mediums seek to end possession due to suffering, while chronic madness often resists cure. Psychiatrists and Protestant exorcists provide last-resort treatments, but efficacy varies greatly. Exorcists are more successful because they accept patients' explanations and redefine madness as normative behavior. Psychiatrists fail when they cannot comprehend patients' experiences, a problem worsened by their reliance on Western cognitive models.
Social science & medicine (1982)
January 1, 1985
P Constantinides
29 citations
In Northern Sudanese society, men control women's sexuality and fertility through practices like infibulation and arranged marriage, yet women themselves perform the rituals of infibulation and manage ceremonies around key life stages, thereby asserting their reproductive power. The zar healing cult, a woman-centered and woman-run ritual, fits within this symbolic system, reflecting the complex interplay of male authority and female agency.
Social science & medicine (1982)
January 1, 1985
M R Woodward
29 citations
In Javanese traditional medicine, two conflicting healing modalities coexist: one relies on the magical powers of curers (dukun), the other on the religiously validated powers of Sufi saints. Both are rooted in Sufi Muslim concepts of personhood, knowledge, and magical power. Javanese integrate traditional and biomedical cures into a unified health care system by associating magical and biomedical knowledge. Comparison of Javanese medical, religious, and political systems reveals that the structural uniformity of cultural domains arises from the hierarchical organization of cultural knowledge. The study of traditional medicine and medical pluralism cannot be separated from that of worldview.
Social science & medicine (1982)
January 1, 1988
M M Steedly
18 citations
Karo Batak ceremonial healing in urban Indonesia operates in a contested space where social and cultural coherence cannot be assumed. Examining a spirit possession cult's efforts to cure soul loss in a young Christian man, the son of a leading spirit medium, this paper challenges the applicability of the 'integrative model' and proposes an alternative framework that focuses on the social, cultural, and interpersonal tensions running through the cult's practices, which those practices simultaneously aim to contain.
Social science & medicine (1982)
January 1, 1984
W J Karim
13 citations
Among traditional Malay midwives (bidan kampung) in northwestern Peninsular Malaysia, professional rivalry and dissonance surface through oblique attacks of witchcraft accusations. A midwife is also an exorcist with skills similar to the Malay bomoh, but her knowledge of witchcraft is limited to diagnostic and curative rituals for spirit-possession in infants, children, young unmarried women, and pregnant mothers. Codes of professionalism depend not only on skill and experience but also on religiousness, benevolence, virtue, diligence, and fair-play. Witches are conceived as anti-Islamic, uncompromising, malevolent, and destructive. Government midwives who threaten traditional midwives' popularity are also labeled as witches. Midwifery and witchcraft, though structurally opposed in ideology and morality, exist within the same sphere of ritual and symbolic communication.
Social science & medicine (1982)
August 1, 2025
Lise Juul, Morten Frydenberg, Emilie Hasager Bonde et al.
12 citations
A nationwide cluster-randomized trial in Danish elementary schools tested whether training teachers to deliver a ten-session mindfulness program improved student mental health. Among 1,728 students in grades 4–9, including 351 identified as at-risk, no statistically significant benefit was found on the primary outcome (Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire Total Difficulties Score) at eight months; the effect size for at-risk students was negligible (Cohen's d = 0.05). Secondary analyses suggested the intervention may have increased perceived hyperactivity and inattention, especially among boys and younger students, and worsened self-rated health among at-risk students. The authors call for further research into mechanisms and implementation fidelity.
Social science & medicine (1982)
October 1, 2023
Alex K Gearin
6 citations
Metaphors, analogies, and similes are common in narratives of drinking the psychedelic ayahuasca, forming a transcultural pattern. Based on survey and field research at a healing center in Pucallpa, Peru, the article examines conceptual metaphors in stories told by international guests. Bodily metaphors and visionary analogies appear in narrative plots that express the reappraisal, overcoming, and sometimes emboldening of psychiatric symptoms. Moving beyond the literal-figurative divide, the article explores the intrinsic metaphoricity of psychedelic experiences and advocates for literacy of conceptual metaphors in both clinical and non-clinical psychedelic narratives, which can broaden approaches in psychedelic psychiatry and social science research.
Social science & medicine (1982)
November 19, 2025
Hanne Landgrebe Axelsen, Anna Glavind Müller, Lone Overby Fjorback et al.
A cluster-randomized trial in Denmark tested a year-long mindfulness-based teacher training program across 110 schools. Teachers who completed the program reported a small but significant reduction in perceived stress 12 months later compared with a wait-list control group. No significant effect was found on resilience. The findings suggest that such training may help reduce long-term stress among self-selected schoolteachers.
Social science & medicine (1982)
September 1, 2021
Nicole Gombay, Gavin J Andrews
Drawing on the author's own experience of traumatic brain injury, this article uses a (neuro)phenomenological approach to examine how sensory experiences—especially pain, vision, hearing, and bodily sensations during sleep—are intertwined with other TBI symptoms. The analysis enriches clinical concepts of sensitivity to light and noise, and sleep disturbance, by grounding them in lived experience. The article argues that these sensory phenomena can be understood through embodied dynamics of vibration, oscillation, and stochastic resonance. It suggests that a phenomenologically informed, sensory analysis of TBI experiences may offer new directions for research and clinical practice.