Anthro 136 Final Paper
The intrinsic relationship between psychopathology and religious experience has been analyzed extensively over the years by many prominent anthropologists. Logically, a number of contrasting schools of thought have been developed. This paper will analyze the Psychodynamic, Configurationalist, and Phenomenological approach to psychopathology through the lens of a specific case study and five different anthropologists.
Psychodynamics is the branch of psychology concerned with how the underlying forces of human behavior come to shape our perception and experience. George Devereux and Melford Spiro were two proponents of this approach. Both concerned themselves with the impact of the repression of dystonic impulses on the human psyche. Devereux referred to the idiosyncratic portion of the individual unconscious as the instinctual forces that are typically not culturally recognized expressions but are still embedded in the individual. He believed that idiosyncratic traumas leads to the initiation of individual defense mechanisms which repress these traumas and push them into the idiosyncratic unconscious. Spiro provides the interpretation of the middle segment of this sequence of events, the personal defense mechanism. He believed these were personal defenses towards the taboo instincts, such as pushing them to the back of your mind, or the individual variation in choice of external resources.
Similar to the idiosyncratic portion, the unconscious segment of the ethnic personality is the other portion of repressed impulses manifesting themselves in the unconscious. Members of a culture often share repressed qualities because they share the same traumas and the same defenses, which leads to a set of culturally determined social sicknesses. In response to these original traumas, societies develop culturally constituted defense mechanisms, or in other words, a collective response by shared resources. An example of a possible cultural means for resolving conflict is religion, which can provide personal or ceremonial healing.
Our case study can shed light on these different terms. Mary, the subject of our study, originally started having symptoms while at camp. One night, Mary and her friends were outside when they all saw ghost-like figures and began to have a conversation with them. The fact all the children saw the figures indicates we are dealing with a shared trauma, and one that is most likely caused by cultural elements. The fact Mary was the only one that continued experiencing symptoms indicates that she was unsuccessfully in repressing them into her unconscious, whereas the other children were.
Mary experienced symptoms of abnormal behaviors and hallucinations for many months following this event. Interestingly, she would experience these symptoms only when she returned home from school, and never during school. This is an example of a personal defense mechanism by Mary because she was actively repressing her thoughts and feelings to the back of her unconscious. Additionally, after realizing her daughter was not getting better, Mary’s mother resolved to attempting an exorcism carried out by the village elders. The ceremony was successful, and Mary was healed from her symptoms. This is an example of a culturally constituted defense mechanism developed by the members of the Yakima tribe.
Devereaux believed the primary issue confronting psychiatry was in determining the boundary between normality and abnormality. If one leans towards abnormality, the various defense mechanisms available to them have failed, and the traumas they experienced will make their way to the surface of their personality. They have failed to adjust to the circumstances of their society. Spiro was more in depth with his characterization of neurosis. He developed a criterion for assessing psychopathology by determining impairments to reality through a series of tests. These tests attempt to uncover how we go about determining what exactly is the separation between normal and abnormal. For example, a religious zealot may seem delusional to the outside observer, but to the other members of his religion he may be completely rational and sane. Spiro stresses that if a person cannot make the distinction between dreams and reality, or confuses memory with experience, something may be wrong. For the religious zealot, Spiro would look to see if there is an impairment of cultural functioning, meaning if the person has an inability to adhere to their own cultural norms and rules and instead acts systematically atypical and irrational, then they may be experiencing a form of abnormality and mental disorder.
Additionally, both Devereaux and Spiro developed ideas on the process by which a trauma or impulse is repressed and culture is accepted. Devereaux maintained that adjustment was the means by which a person either becomes normal and sane, or marginalized and psychotic. If one does not adjust to social roles and cultural expectations, they will develop psychosis. According to Devereaux a person can experience external adjustment, where they adjust to society by conforming their actions, but do not personally believe in what is being done, or they can experience internal adjustment, where a person fundamentally and personally believes in their actions. If a person adjusts externally, they will likely fall into a trap later on down the line and fail to meet some cultural expectation. Spiro outlined exactly the methodology in the process of internal adjustment (referred to as internalization). It occurs as follows – acquaintance, understanding, acceptance, enactment, and finally, embodiment. If one is unsuccessful in internalizing the belief system, or is unable to separate reality from delusion, they will develop psychosis.
In terms of the case study, we can clearly see a failure of adjustment by Mary. When she and her friends saw the ghosts, Mary was the only one who continued experiencing physical and mental traumas. She would cry, speak incoherently, be frightened the ghosts would come back and kill her siblings, and run around in a state of panic. The fact none of her friends continued experiencing any trauma illustrates the possibility of successful cultural and personal defense mechanisms and the successful process of adjustment. Mary on the other hand was not able to adjust, and is incapable of distinguishing reality from delusion, and thus experiences a mental disorder.
The process by which the elders were able to fix Mary’s situation attests to Devereaux’s notion of readjustment. Mary was able to adjust back to social normalcy after having been under the influence of a mental disorder. She was not successful at internalization at first but was eventually healed through the implementation of a culturally constituted defense mechanism (the exorcism).
As one can see, Devereaux and Spiro’s approach to analyzing psychopathology is very similar. Both are concerned with the internal, dystonic impulses and their subsequent repression or lack thereof as the fundamental cause of mental disorder. Additionally, both have similar understandings of defining what constitutes psychosis, and how they can be prevented through adjustment and internalization. In general, however, Spiro is more concerned with outlining the specific methodology behind making determinations of psychosis, and the process of internalizing belief systems.
Both Devereaux and Spiro critic the configurationalist account of abnormalities that was pioneered by Ruth Benedict. They tend to favor the absolutism approach over the configurationalist relativism approach. Benedict believed that which constitutes an abnormality in one culture may differ from the that in another culture. She defines normality as the socially elaborated and accepted segment of human behaviors, while abnormality is the socially taboo segment of behaviors that a culture does not use. Thus, what defines taboo in one culture may not be considered taboo in another, and the psychological suffering which may be present in one culture may not exist in another. This is the relativism approach, which is seen as controversial to many, especially to Deveraux and Spiro. On the other hand, absolutism maintains that by implementing the concept of a culturally constituted behavioral environment, anthropologists can analyze behavior relative to individual culture while also analyzing behavior relative to universal scientific principles. The idea of absolutism is also in line with the thinking of A. I. Hallowell and Thomas Csordas, two prominent anthropologists of the phenomenological school of thought.
Phenomenology is the study of consciousness grounded in analyzing observable events and direct experiences. A. I. Hallowell believed our understanding of the “nature of the self” is the fundamental axis around which our understanding of the world revolves and that the five basic orientations are the constitution of this axis. This perception of the self begins with the culturally determined interpretation of experiences. According to Hallowell every culture must provide people with these basic orientations, albeit they might do so in different ways. If a culture does not provide one with the basic orientations, then that person will not be able to function or develop properly in society (psychodynamic adjustment). These orientations include self, object, spatiotemporal, normative, and motivational.
Hallowell was also a strong proponent of the concept of behavioral environment. He believed analyzing an objective external world was not sufficient, but rather the psychological interpretation of the experiences produced by the external world is what psychologist should be concerned with. He also examined the boundary between subjectivity and objectivity. Integral to one's understanding of the nature of one self is the understanding of individual existence in an objective light. One must have a valid conception of what constitutes the self, the subjective, and what constitutes that which is not intrinsic of self, the objective. Furthermore, he believes this boundary is not precise and instead fluctuates based on cultural symbolism and perspectives.
In our case study, Mary struggles with distinguishing hallucinations from reality. She claimed to see ghosts, blood on the ground, and have delusions that the ghosts were coming to kill her family. Hallowell’s interpretation of diagnosis would begin with his understanding of the symptoms by attempting to understand the behavioral environment in which Mary resides. One must first observe not only the cultural background of the individual, but also the way in which the individual perceives their culture. In this example, the mother claims their family is now Presbyterian, and that her daughter knows nothing of her grandfathers supposed spiritual gift. However, Mary still resides in a community where these ideas and stories are prevalent, and she could have heard of old religious stories from other people in her community. Mary is far removed from the original cultural philosophies, but a weak connection to them may still be present.
In terms of Hallowell’s perspective, Mary’s culture must provide her with the five basic orientations in order for her to function properly in society. Clearly, at some point of her development, Mary lost touch with one or more of these orientations. She is unable to distinguish between culturally represented objects and her own imagination, and thus exhibits a failure of object orientation. The religious ceremony of exorcism restored her orientation and cured her of her illness. Uncovering the religious background of her people will give insight into the cultural symbolism and environment in which Mary exists, and that which she is struggling to distinguish.
Thomas Csordes approach to psychopathology and religion is similar to Hallowell’s. He brought a strictly anti-cartesian dynamic to the conversation in that he believed the mind and body are not separate. This idea lends itself to his belief in existentialism, the thought that all philosophical inquiry is related to the direct interpretation of human experiences through our five senses (very similar to Hallowell’s behavioral environment). In essence, existentialism is the “language of the senses”. Embodiment is the method in which we use these senses to analyze and make sense of the world, and thus everything, including culture, is only as it experienced through our body. The idea of existentialism allows us to focus on the experiences of the body as the cultural locus of elaborations and thus compare different culture’s reactions to psychopathologies. In Mary’s case for example, she was diagnosed by a clinical therapist with having acute schizophrenia. Whereas her mother was sure that Mary’s illness had to do with her grandfather being a witch doctor and that his powers were actively being passed on to Mary. These two interpretations of Mary’s affliction are strikingly different, however the underlying similarities of each can be found in the specific bodily experienced symptoms of Mary. Thus, we have a cultural phenomenological explanation which finds common ground in the ideas of existentialism and embodiment.
Csordes believed in the idea of somatic modes of attention in that there are cultural elaborated ways of attending to and with one’s body in the surrounding environment. In essence, a person’s experience of the world through their sensory modalities can be interpreted differently based on cultural beliefs. Additionally, experience is indeterminate in that it is structured through shifting horizons which create infinitely many perspectives. Mary’s perception of reality, for example, is being distorted through an artificial horizon in which she sees and hears ghosts. Furthermore, this artificial horizon is pre-objective, but not pre-cultural. Pre-objective refers to an experience that is yet to be reflected on, such as the figures that Mary sees. These figures have not yet been classified as ghosts or the residual powers of a witch doctor by Mary’s mom (and essentially, by her culture). However, Mary’s experience of seeing the ghosts are strictly not pre-cultural in that her experience was still affected by culture, regardless of whether it was conscious or not. Culture will always have an effect on experiences. The process by which the figures are transformed by cultural perception into the culturally constituted object of ghosts is known as objectification.
Csordes and Hallowell each provide a different analytical lens in which we can analyze the relationship between psychopathology and religion. Csordes focuses on interpreting the relationship through the comparison of different cultural reactions to the same mental illness. This is a successful method for analyzing how one culture’s interpretation because it provides a relative framework from which we can base ideas off. Both Hallowell and Csordes have ideas grounded in existentialism and phenomenology in that they believe the human experience of culture, religion, and mental illness is grounded in the individual interpretations of reality through our modality senses. There ideas stem from the idea that the “body is not an object to be studied in relation to culture, but it is the existential ground of culture.”