Near-Death Experiences in a Multi-religious Hospital Population in Sri Lanka

Near-death experiences (NDEs) are a wide range of experiences that occur in association with impending death. There are no published studies on NDEs in general hospital populations, and studies have been mainly conducted on critically ill patients. We assessed the prevalence of NDEs and its associations in a multi-religious population in a general hospital in Sri Lanka. A randomised sample of patients admitted to the Colombo North Teaching Hospital was assessed using the Greyson NDE scale and clinical assessment. Out of total 826 participants, NDEs were described by 3%. Compared to the NDE-negative participants, the NDE-positive group had a significantly higher mean for age and a ratio of men. Women reported deeper NDEs. Patients of theistic religions (Christianity, Islam and Hinduism) reported significantly more NDEs compared to patients from the non-theistic religious group (Buddhism). NDE-positive patient group had significantly higher reporting of a feeling ‘that they are about to die’, the presence of loss of consciousness and a higher percentage of internal medical patients. This is the first time that NDEs are assessed in a general hospital population and NDEs being reported from Sri Lanka. We also note for the first time that persons with theistic religious beliefs reported more NDEs than those with non-theistic religious beliefs. Medical professionals need to be aware of these phenomena to be able to give an empathic hearing to patients who have NDE.     

Culture,Gender, and Suicidal Behavior in Sri Lanka

In less than 50 years, the rate of suicide among Sri Lankans has risen from a modest level to one of the highest in the world. This article describes the current pattern of suicides, including sex differences and similarities, and reviews some of the institutional practices, material conditions, and social norms that may figure in the increases. A study is reported, which asked how ordinary Sri Lankans account for suicidal behavior and what practices they recommend for assisting suicidal individuals. Gender inflected these accounts, with essentialist accounts associated with women's suicides and contextual accounts associated with men's suicides.     

斯里兰卡民族冲突的根源

斯里兰卡独立后,僧伽罗、泰米尔两大民族之间冲突不断发生.两大民族的冲突起源于英国殖民统治时期,佛教革命和一元制体制的建立是其宗教及文化根源,政府政策方针的变化则是其政治原因.     

The contemporary lay meditation movement and lay gurus in Sri Lanka

This article examines the lay meditation movement occurring in contemporary Buddhism in Sri Lanka. The lay meditation movement represents a different perspective from the nationalistic Sinhala Buddhism that has dominated the discourse in the wake of the intractable ethnic conflict in the country. The lay meditation movement reflects the contemporary ferment in Buddhist discourse among the laity. One of the key themes in this movement is the privileging of experience because it gives the lay groups authority to challenge contemporary orthodoxy and it has empowered a new class of spiritual leaders, the lay gurus. Paraphrasing Stirrat, we can say that these lay gurus are leading the lay meditation movement towards ‘a series of different interpretations of what it means’ to be a Buddhist today. In its overall effect the lay meditation movement not only reconstructs what it means to be a Buddhist today but also points in the direction of establishing new forms of sectarianism that could be considered to be ‘new religious movements’ under the umbrella of Buddhism.     

Psychology in an Asian country: A report from Sri Lanka

This paper describes the history and present status of psychology in Sri Lanka, including facilities for teaching psychology and legal issues in registration provisions for psychologists. The future directions in improving the status of psychology in the country are delineated.     

Girls' identity formation in the changing social structure of Sri Lanka.

Adolescent girls (N = 118) from diverse social backgrounds in Sri Lanka described their views of womanhood. Qualities of the ideal woman considered most important were kindness and honesty, liking children, intelligence, and having a good job. Although the traditional role of the Sri Lankan woman is that of homemaker, most girls in the study (55%) drew the ideal woman working outside the home, often as a teacher or a doctor. Nevertheless, adolescent girls emphasized traditional qualities of the woman at both work and home as self-sacrificing and serving others.     

Migrant Religiousness and Social Incorporation: Tamil Hindus from Sri Lanka in Germany

Processes of immigration and the importance of religion among migrants have caught the interest of both researchers and politicians. This article presents new empirical data from a study of Tamil Hindu immigrants in Germany. Tamils from Sri Lanka have come to Germany as asylum seekers during the 1980s and 1990s. The majority are Hindus (about 46,000) who established some 25 Hindu temples over the past two decades. In contrast to previous ethnographic research on this immigrant group, this article applies quantitative and statistical research to complement existing findings and to analyse the scope of religiousness and its impact on processes of immigrant social incorporation. The findings underscore that material wealth and generation progression exert a significant influence on the religiousness of the Tamil Hindu immigrants. The results also show that on the one hand, religion has significant association with Tamils’ reluctance to assimilate and with their preference to maintain contact with other Tamils rather than contact with Germans. However, on the other hand, religion does not prevent contact with Germans on the level of interaction. In fact, the data point to an increase of inter-ethnic contact among the Hindu. Another important finding is identification with multiple religions: 8.1% of the sample describe themselves as both Hindu and Catholic.     

Counselling in areas of armed conflict: the case of Jaffna, Sri Lanka

In this article counselling is discussed in relation to the traditional resources of the Tamil community for dealing with psycho-social and mental health problems. It describes some of the problems of clients affected by the armed conflict, the approaches of the local counsellors and mental health professionals, and the training offered to future Sri Lankan counsellors who want to work with people affected by the armed conflict on the island.     

Geographical Frame of Reference and Dangerous Intergroup Attitudes: A Double-Minority Study in Sri Lanka

An ethnic group can comprise a local majority, but be a minority within a broader geographic region or vice-versa. This situation has interesting psychological implications that may contribute to intergroup conflict. To test some of these implications, an experiment was conducted in Sri Lanka, during a ceasefire in the conflict between the government and Tamil rebellion forces. Participants were 100 Sinhalese students. An experimental manipulation was introduced to make one of two geographical regions salient: either just Sri Lanka (within which Sinhalese outnumber Tamils) or a broader region of south Asia (within which Sinhalese are outnumbered by Tamils). Following the manipulation, stereotypes and conflict-relevant attitudes were assessed. Results revealed that when Sinhalese participants were inclined to think of their group as the outnumbered minority, stereotypic perceptions of Tamils were more demonizing (i.e., depicting Tamils as more malevolent and also more competent), and their conflict-relevant attitudes were less conciliatory. These results have conceptual implications as well as implications for understanding conflict and conflict resolution.     

The problem of privacy in transcultural research: reflections on an ethnographic study in Sri Lanka

Western laws and codes of ethics frequently require that private health information be treated confidentially. However, cross-cultural research shows that it is not always easy to determine what members of a culture consider to be private or how they wish private information to be handled. This article begins by presenting an ethnographic study of patient-healer relationships in Sri Lanka; researchers were surprised to find that participants' views of health and privacy differed greatly from typical Western views, and that the privacy protections they had put in place caused discomfort among participants. Building on this ethics case study, the article explores two main questions. First, can a single definition of privacy possibly do justice to the cultural variations that exist, or does a conceptual definition inevitably run the risk of ethnocentrism? Second, to what extent is strict compliance with research regulations or ethics codes ethically justifiable when following the rules will obviously cause unease in international participants?     

The Use of Mindfulness Practice in the Treatment of a Case of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder in Sri Lanka

For over 20 centuries, Buddhism has been the spiritual practice of the majority of Sri Lankans. Though Buddhist practices have been increasingly influencing psychotherapy in the West, the use of such practices in psychotherapy in Sri Lanka is not common. This paper attempts to bridge this gap by presenting a case study where Buddhist mindfulness practice was used successfully in the treatment of a case of obsessive compulsive disorder. This paper also presents an outline of the association between Buddhist mindfulness practice and mindfulness practices used in modern-day psychotherapy and discusses issues in the use of mindfulness practice in psychotherapy.     

Teaching Council in Sri Lanka: A Post Disaster, Culturally Sensitive and Spiritual Model of Group Process

In response to the December 26, 2004 tsunami in Southeast Asia, a method of treating trauma with group therapy, called Council, was introduced to Sri Lankan para-professionals working for Sarvodaya, a local non-governmental organization, by American psychotherapists associated with Heart Circle Sangha, a Zen Buddhist temple in New Jersey. Working together, Americans and Sri Lankans incorporated meditation, mindfulness and culturally congruent spiritual ritual that made the group process acceptable and healing to the survivors who were Buddhist, Muslim, Hindu and Christian.     

Mismatched Lovers: Exploring the Compatibility Between LGBTQ+ Identity Theories and Gender and Sexual Plurality in Sri Lanka

Sexual and gender identity development theories in psychology and sociology exert considerable influence over discourse on gender and sexuality, shaping key domains such as counseling, education, and social work, as well as public policy and advocacy. While a robust body of literature has developed in critique of such theories and models, they continue to be applied in the Global South without much thought for their relevance to various non-Western cultural contexts. The current study explores the fit of these identity development theories to the experiences of 15 non-heterosexual and transgender individuals in Sri Lanka, gathered through a qualitative study of the question in 2016. These participants articulated gender and sexual self-conceptions that were incongruent with major identity development theories in significant ways. A broad majority failed to endorse central or salient sexual identities, while demonstrating a fluidity in object choice, sex roles, and sex acts, thus rupturing the theoretical notion of stable and coherent identities. Transgender participants did not demonstrate identity synthesis or pride and complicated theoretical understandings of sexual intimacy. These findings highlight the necessity of considering individual differences and cultural contexts when studying gender and sexuality and the dangers of universalizing theories across cultural differences.     

Posttraumatic Cognitions and Depressive Symptoms in War and Disaster Affected Widows in Sri Lanka: The Role of Community Support

In this study the authors evaluated the associations between war- and disaster-related problems and indicators of psychological distress (posttraumatic cognitions and culturally-specific symptoms of depression) among a sample of Tamil widows in the Eastern Provence of Sri Lanka. Furthermore, community support was evaluated as a mediator of these associations. Surveys were administered to women (N?=?156) in an interview format by trained research assistants who were native Tamil speakers. Mediation hypotheses were evaluated using path analysis. Results showed that war-related problems, but not disaster-related losses, was significantly associated with community support and posttraumatic cognitions, such that higher number of war-problems was associated with lower community support and more posttraumatic cognitions. Community support had a significant negative association with posttraumatic cognitions and depression. Additionally, we found evidence that war-related problems was indirectly associated with depression through community support. Although the magnitude of associations was small, results suggest that contextual problems resulting from years of armed conflict may be associated with less support from one’s community which, in turn, is associated with increased psychological distress. Limitations and implications for intervention and future research are discussed.