Shamanism and schizophrenia is a debate in anthropology regarding whether shamans in some non-Western societies would be diagnosed as suffering from mental illness (especially schizophrenia) in Western societies.
- Sigmund Freud in Totem and Taboo claimed that the "mental lives of savages" (including of course its religious specialists like shamans) resembled neurosis.
- Taken on by George Devereux, the influential founder of ethnopsychiatry, which was influenced by psychoanalysis. Claimed that the trance and spirit possession of shamans were the same as schizophrenia, but were interpreted differently by the shaman's culture. Devereux implied that mentally ill people could have a role in some societies that did not interpret this kind of behavior as pathological.
- Already criticized in the 1960s, this equivalence has now been mostly rejected. "Schizophrenia" was used vaguely or as a metaphor more than an exact diagnosis.
Notes edit
Bibliography edit
- Boyer, L. Bryce. (1969). "Shamans: To Set the Record Straight." American Anthropologist 71: 307-309.
- Devereux, Georges. (1956). "Normal and Abnormal: The Key Problems of Psychiatric Anthropology." In J.B. Casagrande and T. Gladwin (eds.), Some Uses of Anthropology: Theoretical and Applied, pp. 23-48. Washington, DC: Anthropological Society of Washington.
- Devereux, George. (1961). "Shamans as Neurotics." American Anthropologist 63: 1088-1090.
- Good, Byron J. (1994). Medicine, Rationality, and Experience: An Anthropological Perspective. Lewis Henry Morgan Lectures. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- Handelman, Don. (1967). "The Development of a Washo Shaman." Ethnology 6: 444-464.
- Handelman, Don. (1968). "Shamanizing on an Emtpy Stomach." American Anthropologist 70: 353-356.
- Kroeber, A. L. (1940). "Psychotic Factors in Shamanism." Character and Personality 8: 204-215.
- Lioger, Richard. (2002). La folie du chaman. Histoire de l'ethnopsychanalyse. Ethnologies. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.
- La Barre, Weston. (1970). The Ghosts Dance: Orgins of Religion. New York: Delta.
- Noll, Richard. (1983). "Shamanism and Schizophrenia: A State-Specific Approach to the 'Schizophrenia Metaphor' of Shamanic States." American Ethnologist 10: 443-459.
- Peters, Larry (1981). Ecstasy and Healing in Nepal. Malibu, CA: Undena Publications.
- Peters, Larry (1982). "Trace, Initiation and Psychotherapy in Tamang Shamanism." American Ethnologist 9: 21-46.