Deliverance,demonic possession,and mental illness: some considerations for mental health professionals

This paper outlines an unconventional treatment for mental illness, the exorcism or deliverance ritual used by Pentecostals and some other charismatic Christians. Deliverance beliefs and practices are based on the assumption that both mental and physical ills result from possession of the sufferer by demons, and are to be treated by the expulsion of those demons. Deliverance practitioners claim to treat schizophrenia, ADHD, and Reactive Attachment Disorder, and believe that these problems are related to sins either of the person in treatment or of an ancestor. Clinicians and counsellors dealing with clients who partially or completely espouse deliverance beliefs may need to understand their worldviews and to discuss their belief system before managing to engage them in conventional mental health treatments. Unusual ethical problems may also be met in the course of such work.     

The concept possession hypothesis of self-consciousness

This paper presents the hypothesis that concept possession is sufficient and necessary for self-consciousness. If this is true it provides a yardstick for gauging the validity of different research paradigms in which claims for self-consciousness in animals or human infants are made: a convincing demonstration of concept possession in a research subject, such as a display of inferential reasoning, may be taken as conclusive evidence of self-consciousness. Intuitively, there appears to be a correlation between intelligence in animals (which presupposes concept possession) and the existence of self-consciousness. I present three discussions to support the hypothesis: an analogy between perception and conception, where both are self-specifying; an argument that any web of concepts will always include the self-concept; and a fresh interpretation of Bermũdez (1998) showing how his theory of non-conceptual content provides strong support for the concept possession hypothesis.     

Abrasive personality disorder: Definition and diagnosis

This article advances a proposal for a newly identified type of personality disorder. While, like some of the other major personality disorders, the abrasive personality disorder (AbPD) shares some features with other Axis II disorders, it may however be considered as possessing sufficient idiosyncratic features as to warrant a separate classification. There are few documented discussions of this disorder within the historical confines of scientific psychology, however a good deal of attention is being focused currently in the popular press, under the rubric of “difficult people,” “control freaks,” and the like. The disorder is defined, its distinguishing characteristics delineated, with theoretical discussion provided. Some rudimentary assessment approaches are noted, with a call for research in this virgin territory.     

What's mine is mine: twelve-month-olds use possessive pronouns to identify referents

This research investigated 12-month-olds' ability to use person-specific language to determine to which of several absent things a person is referring. Infants were introduced to two experimenters who played separately with a different ball. One researcher asked infants to retrieve her object when both balls were hidden. Infants selected the correct object when researchers used the pronoun my, but failed to do so when the was used. The present research provides the first evidence of 12-month-olds' comprehension of possessive pronouns and indicates that infants use person-specific language to resolve reference.     

The mere possession effect of shareable digital coupons: The mediating role of anticipated self-enhancement

Shareable digital coupons have emerged as a new marketing strategy. Prior literature on shareable coupons assumes that shareable coupons can play a role only after they have been shared with others. Surprisingly, we theorize that shareable coupons can come into play as early as when consumers merely possess them, even before consumers share them with others, an effect that precedes the effect of the actual coupon sharing. In this research, we show that the mere possession of shareable digital coupons (not necessarily the actual sharing) is able to induce anticipated self-enhancement among consumers. Hence shareable digital coupons are more effective than non-shareable digital coupons, and the effect is most pronounced among consumers with high image concerns. The higher coupon effectiveness of shareable digital coupons is reflected in consumers' greater urge/intention to acquire the coupon, intention to revisit, willingness to spend, as well as in firm's sales increase when products are promoted with shareable instead of non-shareable digital coupons. Our work contributes to the literature on shareable coupons, the mere possession effects, anticipated self-enhancement, and other-rewarding promotions, and is of important managerial value given the ease with which the shareability feature can be added to coupons.     

Effects of ownership expressed by the first-person possessive pronoun

The present study examined the behavioral effects of the first-person possessive pronoun. In each trial, a noun (e.g. cup or bread) was presented to participants after visual presentation of a possessive pronoun “wo de” (Chinese for “my”) or “ta de” (Chinese for “his”), which formed ownership. Half participants were assigned to contextual encoding (CE) condition in which they were required to judge whether they liked the item expressed by a noun from the first or third-person perspective. The rest were assigned to perceptual encoding (PE) condition in which they were asked to judge what color the noun was. A subsequent recall test was performed. The results showed that there were significant memory and response advantages for nouns in “my” ownership under both conditions. The results were discussed with reference to self-specificity and other effects in the current study.     

Firearm possession and violent death: A critical review

This article critically reviews the empirical research on the association of firearm possession with suicide and homicide. Both suicide and homicide reflect intentional behavior with the goal of killing oneself or another person. Firearms provide merely a means of reaching this goal. The possession of a firearm can, therefore, not be a primary cause of either suicide or homicide. However, since a defining characteristic of both suicide and homicide is the success of killing, and since guns are more effective means for reaching this goal than poison or other weapons, the rate of firearm possession can be expected to be positively related to overall rates of suicide and homicide. This prediction has been tested with individual-level as well as macro-level studies. Individual-level studies, which typically use case–control designs, allow a better control than macro-level studies of the cultural, demographic, and economic determinants of suicide and homicide. In macro-level studies, the potential impact of gun possession on overall rates is likely to be confounded by the factors that motivate people to commit suicide or homicide. Despite these methodological limitations, the research reviewed in this article supports the assumption that easy access to firearms increases the risk of dying from violent causes. With very few exception, studies found gun ownership positively related to gun-related suicides and homicides. Furthermore, there is evidence that guns do not merely serve as substitutes for other means of killing, but increase the overall rates of suicide and homicide.     

The diagnosis, symptomatology, and epidemiology of seasonal affective disorder

The operational criteria for seasonal affective disorder (SAD) have undergone several changes since first proposed in 1984. SAD is currently included as a specifier of either bipolar or recurrent major depressive disorder in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition. The International Classification of Diseases, Tenth Edition has provisional diagnostic criteria for SAD. The most characteristic quality of SAD is that the symptoms usually present during winter and remit in the spring. Furthermore, the symptoms tend to remit when the patients are exposed to daylight or bright light therapy. The cognitive and emotional symptoms are as in other types of depression but the vegetative symptoms are the reverse of classic depressive vegetative symptoms, namely increased sleep and increased appetite. SAD is a common condition, but the exact prevalence rates vary between different studies and countries and is consistently found to be more common in women and in youth. SAD probably possibly occurs in children although not as commonly as in young adults. Some studies have found that certain ethnic groups who live at high northern latitudes may have adapted to the long arctic winter.     

Positive affective and cognitive states in borderline personality disorder

The aim of the current study was to compliment previous studies identifying negative states present in borderline personality disorder (BPD) by investigating the presence of positive affective and cognitive states. Ninety-six patients with criteria-defined borderline personality disorder and 24 axis II comparison participants completed the Positive Affect Scale, a 50-item self-report measure designed to assess positive states thought to be characteristic of and discriminating for BPD. Seventeen positive states (4 affective, 10 cognitive, and 3 mixed) were found to be significantly more common among axis II comparison participants than borderline patients. Twelve of these states were common to both borderline patients and axis II comparison participants. Furthermore, four positive states, when co-occurring together, were particularly strongly associated with borderline personality disorder (three negatively and one positively): (a) Fond of myself, (b) That things around me are real, (c) That I've forgiven others, and (d) Assertive. Finally, the overall mean score on the PAS significantly distinguished patients with borderline personality disorder from axis II comparison participants. Taken together, these results suggest that borderline patients are far less likely to report experiencing positive states of an affective, cognitive, and mixed nature than axis II comparison participants. They also suggest that being assertive is a positive state particularly discriminating for borderline personality disorder.     

A practical way to diagnosis personality disorder: a proposal

General criteria for the diagnosis of personality disorder are provided based on rating a few items describing four core features of personality disorder: (a) low Self-directedness, (b) low Cooperativeness, (c) low Affective Stability, and (d) low Self-transcendence. These core features correspond closely with the basic concept of personality disorder in DSM-IV and are based on specific items easy for clinicians to rate in a short time. Criteria are also provided for rating severity of personality disorganization and for subtyping based on a profile of three additional dimensions corresponding to core features of DSM-IV clusters A, B, and C. This approach should facilitate efficient screening in clinical practice, encourage an understanding of the development of comorbidity as a self-organizing process, and provide a theory-driven basis for therapeutic planning with drugs and psychotherapy.     

Grammatical priming of inflected nouns by the gender of possessive adjectives

Two experiments examined the effect on lexical decision times for inflected Serbo-Croatian nouns when the nouns were preceded by possessive adjectives (my, your, our). For any given pairing the possessive adjective and the noun agreed always in number (singular) and case (nominative) but only agreed half of the time in gender (masculine or feminine). Lexical decisions were faster when the noun targets were of the same gender as their primes. This gender congruency/incongruency effect was shown to hold whether the inflections of the adjective and noun were the same (as is the case for typical Serbo-Croatian nouns) or different (as is the case for atypical Serbo-Croatian nouns). The results are discussed in terms of a postlexical influence of grammatical processing on the recognition of individual words.     

First possession: An assumption guiding inferences about who owns what

How do we determine who owns what? This article reports evidence indicating that we typically assume that the first person who possesses an object is its owner. In Experiments 1 and 2, participants read cartoons in which two children each take a turn playing with a toy. Participants selected the character who first possessed the toy when judging who owned it, but not when judging which character liked it more. In Experiment 3, participants read stories based on the Pierson v. Post (1805) property law case. In line with the appellate court’s ruling in that case, participants selected the character who first captured and possessed an animal as its owner over another character who had pursued it earlier. Together, these findings provide evidence for an assumption that specifically guides our reasoning about ownership and that may lead everyday intuitions about property to be generally consistent with property law.     

Disinhibitory psychopathology in male adolescents: discriminating conduct disorder from attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder through concurrent assessment of multiple autonomic states.

T. P. Beauchaine recently proposed a model of autonomic nervous system functioning that predicts divergent patterns of psychophysiological responding across disorders of disinhibition. This model was tested by comparing groups of male adolescents with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder plus conduct disorder (CD/ADHD) with controls while performing a repetitive motor task in which rewards were administered and removed across trials. Participants then watched a videotaped peer conflict. Electrodermal responding (EDR), cardiac pre-ejection period (PEP), and respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) were monitored. Compared with controls, the ADHD and CD/ADHD participants exhibited reduced EDR. The CD/ADHD group was differentiated from the ADHD and control groups on PEP and from the control group on RSA. Findings are discussed in terms of the motivational and regulational systems indexed. Implications for understanding rates of comorbidity between CD and ADHD are considered.     

Effects of daily events on mood states in major depressive disorder

Major depressive disorder (MDD) is characterized by high negative affect (NA) and low positive affect (PA), but little is known about emotional reactivity in daily life. The authors used experience sampling methodology to investigate changes in NA and PA following minor daily events in MDD compared with healthy participants. Contrary to expectation, MDD participants did not report more frequent negative events, although they did report fewer positive events. Multilevel regression showed that both NA and PA responses to negative events were blunted in the MDD group, whereas responses to positive events were enhanced. NA responses to negative events persisted longer in MDD participants. Depressed participants with a positive family history or longer current episodes showed relatively greater NA responses to negative events.     

Understanding spirit possession in the Philippines: a social representations approach

ABSTRACT

Where there are diverse professionals and curers dealing with possession, differences in representations exist. This study uses social representations theory as a frame to examine both the representational overlaps and differences in possession among various Filipino health professionals and the lay distinctly socialised in Western biomedical and psychological lenses and in local religious and traditional folk beliefs. Themes were extracted from 12 individual interviews. Results showed five representational themes, namely: possession as sinakluban, as a vulnerability, as a disease, as kulam, and as being chosen. Findings were discussed in relation to the interface among religion, indigenous beliefs, psychopathological frame, and the Western biomedical model.     

Toward a multidimensional model of personality disorder diagnosis: implications for DSM-5

This article outlines a model of personality disorder (PD) diagnosis that combines clinically useful constructs from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) with assessment procedures that maximize reliability and clinical utility while minimizing problems associated with threshold-based PD classification. I begin by addressing limitations in the current DSM conceptualization of PDs: excessive comorbidity, use of arbitrary cutoffs to distinguish normal from pathological functioning, failure to capture variations in the adaptive value of PD symptoms, and inattention to situational influences that shape PD-related behaviors. The revisions proposed by the DSM-5 Personality and Personality Disorders Work Group help resolve some of these issues, but create new problems in other areas. A better solution would be to employ a multidimensional model of PD diagnosis in which clinicians (a) assign a single dimensional rating of overall level of personality dysfunction, (b) provide separate intensity and impairment ratings for each PD dimension, and (c) list those personality traits-including PD-related traits-that enhance adaptation and functioning. Preliminary evidence bearing on the multidimensional model is reviewed, and broader clinical and empirical implications of the model are discussed.