SYNOPSIS
The Conference on Spirit Possession and Mental Health, organized by the Ethnic Health Initiative in London, September 2013, introduced the dilemma of the practitioner of Western medicine, faced with a predominantly ethnic-minority client group with a culturally and religiously sanctioned attribution of certain mental health difficulties to possession by spirits (or Jinns in Islamic terminology). Working with traditional healers is a possible solution, but is complicated by the heterogeneity and lack of regulation of this body. By questioning the assumptions behind the Western scientific world-view regarding the impermeability of the human mind, this paper presents a model of the human being that can accommodate the reality of extraneous invasion. Based on the Interacting Cognitive Subsystems model of cognitive architecture (Teasdale and Barnard, 1995), it is possible to argue that we have the capacity in certain susceptible states of mind to step away from our individuality into such a place of vulnerability. Schizotypy research (Claridge, 1997) has explored this potential. A therapeutic approach that honours the individual's experience, based on this re-conceptualization, is presented.
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Isabel Clarke
Isabel Clarke is a consultant clinical psychologist, with 20 years' experience in the NHS. She is currently lead for a project to embed a psychological therapeutic approach across the Southern Health NHS Foundation Trust acute mental health teams. Psychosis and spirituality and the psychology of spirituality are major themes in her writing and speaking. Her most recent books are: Psychosis and Spirituality: Consolidating the New Paradigm (edited—published by Wiley, 2010) and Madness, Mystery and the Survival of God (published by O'Books, 2008). More details of her publications and activities can be found on her website: www.isabelclarke.org