Lucy Huskinson, Analytical Psychology and Spirit Possession: Towards a Non-Pathological Diagnosis of Spirit Possession
Lucy Huskinson, Analytical Psychology and Spirit Possession: Towards a Non-Pathological Diagnosis of Spirit Possession
Undermining the Tendency to Pathologize Spirit Possession
Analytical psychology does not differentiate between the many cultural or anthropological variations of spiritual experience. Instead it conflates all transcendent phenomena – such as spirit possession and mystical experience – into one general kind of psychological experience. It refers to this experience as dissociation, or being in a dissociated state. To understand the nature and underlying dynamic of spirit possession in terms of dissociation is not a new interpretation of spirit possession, per se.
However, dissociation as it is understood in analytical psychology remains relatively unfamiliar to scholars of spirit possession and transcendent experience in general. The unheard voice of analytical psychology within debates on the nature of such phenomena is unfortunate as its contribution is noteworthy.
Perhaps the most notable contribution it makes is its departure from those psychological interpretations of spirit possession that pathologize and objectify its phenomenal variations, and consider them to be symptomatic of undesirable and maladaptive behaviour. Generally speaking, anthropologists do not pathologize spirit possession, but on the contrary, interpret it as an appropriate – even desirable – phenomenon of particular cultures and communities (cf. Kirmayer 1994).
Arguably it is a general tendency of the Western mindset to reduce non-Western cultural experiences to its own rational terms. That is to say, to translate human experience into human knowledge and, subsequently, to reduce human behaviour to categories of explanation. As a consequence, experiences of spirit possession have been identified with an array of psychological disturbances (such as paranoia, auditory and visual hallucinations, thought insertion, delusions, obsessions, amnesia, convulsive seizures, paralysis, heightened affects, and so on), and have subsequently been diagnosed as a variety of psychological and neurological disorders (including hysteria, dissociative identity disorder, epilepsy and schizophrenia).
The parameters of what constitutes mental illness and health are not categorical; they are relative to cultural conceptions, and gradually evolve in light of changing cultural concerns. It would take a paradigmatic shift of grand proportion in the Zeitgeist of Western culture for it to become less rationally oriented (or ego-centred) and more accommodating of nonrational values of interpretation. In the meantime, the tendency of Western psychological interpretation is arguably one that discriminates against spirit possession by explaining its behavioural presentation in terms of abnormality and pathology.
Dissociation is itself both a necessary and inevitable feature of a healthy psychological disposition to life and to everyday experience generally. Simply put, dissociation is a mechanism of the mind that enables one to establish what we might call the foreground of experience by splitting off from consciousness those thoughts, feelings, sensations and intuitions that are irrelevant to one’s immediate concerns. For instance, if you are carefully reading this chapter you have successfully dissociated from other experiences that might otherwise concern you, such as the various sights and sounds that continue around you.
According to the anthropologist M. J. Field, dissociation is the splitting of the stream of consciousness into parallel streams, and this he says is familiar to anyone who can do two things at once, such as playing the piano and simultaneously planning a summer holiday, or driving a car automatically while thinking about something quite different. (1969, p. 3).
Dissociation is thus the mechanism by which streams of consciousness are suspended and unavailable to experience. The activation of dissociation requires energy, and, consequently, the prolonged splitting of streams of consciousness can be very draining and fatiguing to the personality as a whole.
Dissociation operates within the context of a consciousness that is multifaceted and which comprises different streams – or what we might call ego-states – that are in dynamic relationship. In this model, the personality is conceived as a divided self that experiences the world according to the interplay of its parts; that is, according to whichever ego-state or combination of ego-states occupies consciousness at any one moment. Dissociation becomes problematic to the functioning of the personality when one egostate seeks to dominate or annihilate others. In such cases, we may talk about dissociative disorders of the personality, where the overall personality becomes fragmented in such a way that the usual processing of information is disrupted.
The parallel between dissociative ego-states and spirit possession is relatively clear. Thus, in the words of M. J. Field (1969, p. 3), The possessed person is in a state of dissociated personality whereby a split-off part of the mind possesses the whole field of consciousness, the rest being in complete abeyance. Spirit possession and dissociative ego-states similarly describe a situation where a person seems to lose identity and the cohesiveness of his or her personality to become another person altogether.
The obvious and often asked question is whether such experiences of possession are pathological. The answer to this, however, is not so obvious. Indeed, in this chapter I shall argue that, from the perspective of analytical psychology, it is in fact an inappropriate question to ask. According to analytical psychology, spirit possession defies diagnostic criteria; it cannot be explained in terms of pathology, or indeed, of health.
In the course of this chapter we shall arrive at a different question – and perhaps one that is more appropriate to the aims of anthropological study, and more comfortable with its conclusions. We shall not ask whether spirit possession is itself pathological, but whether the ego of the possessed person can tolerate and integrate the possession experience into his or her personality as a whole.
For, as I shall argue, possession merely facilitates mental health or illness according to the disposition of the ego. It is thus the disposition of the ego and not the phenomena of possession that lends itself to possible diagnosis of pathology.
Facilitating constructive dialogue between psychology and anthropology
Despite its healthy nature and its inevitable and frequent occurrence, the term dissociation has received some bad press in anthropological studies of spirit possession, which is in no small part due to its perceived association with psychopathology (that is to say, its particular manifestation as dissociative disorder). Arguably, this association has created an obstacle in communication between anthropologists and psychologists to the extent that the former often assume that the latter will inevitably cast negative judgement upon their subject matter. The anthropologist Morton Klass summarizes the problem thus,
The use of terms like dissociation and dissociative state without further analysis ineluctably implies that altered states of consciousness reflect some degree of psychopathology: used this way, dissociation runs the danger of becoming merely an anthropological euphemism for the older and supposedly discarded answer (They are crazy!) to the question of what is really happening in spirit possession? (2003, p. 69)
Klass implies that the terms dissociation and dissociative state in anthropological study have become so heavily entrenched in negative connotation that they discourage anthropologists from investigating their potential usefulness. This, I contend, is a great shame, for a deeper understanding of the dynamics of dissociation is not only conducive to the aims of anthropological study, but can lend insight to it.
This chapter goes some way to providing the further analysis that Klass implicitly calls for. That is to say, it offers an interpretation of the non-pathological nature of dissociation, which is required if we are to dispel the fictional notion that those people who are possessed by spirits are, from a psychological perspective, inevitably crazy. The argument in this chapter also proffers an hypothesis (not a definitive explanation) of what is really happening in spirit possession, an hypothesis that – through its interpretation of spirit possession as a non-pathological dissociative state – can only facilitate improved dialogue between the disciplines of anthropology and psychology.
By the same token, the argument that I expound is an attempt to ascertain what is really happening in spirit possession and dissociative states as they are conceived within analytical psychology itself. Analytical psychology originates in the ideas of the Swiss psychologist C. G. Jung (1875–1961), but his accounts of the dynamics of possession experience or dissociation in general are sketchy and ambiguous. This chapter attempts to determine and consolidate Jung’s thoughts on possession within the general theoretical framework of his analytical psychology, and subsequently to postulate a Jungian theory of spirit possession.
Jung does not regard spirit possession and its dissociative underpinnings as pathological, but, rather, as I shall argue, as healthy or unhealthy according to their effects on the development of the individual’s ego-personality or the communal ego or attitude of a group of people. Furthermore, these effects are themselves determined by the disposition of the consciousness that is possessed. Although spirit possession is not conceived as a mental illness in its own right, its dissociative effects are believed to incite mental illness (or health).
The effects of dissociation can be devastating to the ego-personality, with the likelihood of psychological damage or illness increasing if the ego is unable to contain or make sense of the possession experience. By contrast, if the ego is able to do so, the effects of dissociation can be positively enriching for it: they can restore health to a neurotic personality and re-energize an unproductive community.
In order to ascertain how Jungian analytical psychology arrives at its non-pathological interpretation of spirit possession, I shall contrast its conception with that proffered by its prominent theoretical antagonist: (Freudian) psychoanalysis. We shall see that their different understandings of the nature of the unconscious and its dissociative effects on ego-consciousness inform their contrasting diagnoses of spirit possession.
That is to say, the particular value given to the unconscious and its corresponding affects (dissociation) determines whether spirit possession is likely to facilitate health or illness. As we shall see, while analytical psychology regards the unconscious as an autonomous resource of creativity (and thereby construes possession of the ego by the unconscious as a potentially enriching experience), psychoanalysis, by contrast, regards the unconscious as a dumping ground for the ego’s unresolved experience (and subsequently conceives its possession of the ego as a delusional experience of the ego’s own making). I shall now turn to these competing perspectives to explain their contrasting diagnoses of spirit possession.
Jung and Freud on the Psychology of Possession
The name analytical psychology was adopted by Jung to differentiate his theory of psychological development from Freudian psychoanalysis. Jung’s model departs considerably from Freud’s in several respects. Arguably the most notable disagreement between the two concerns the nature of the unconscious; and it is this disagreement that underlies their different interpretations of spirit possession.
The spirit of the unconscious: a derivative of personal conflict or an autonomous source of personal enrichment?
Freud and Jung generally agree that human experience comprises several different aspects of the mind in dynamic interplay, and that mental health depends on the degree to which these aspects communicate to each other. In addition to intrapersonal dialogue between ego-consciousness and the unconscious, a person will inevitably encounter interpersonal dialogue between himself or herself and the people, society and world around him or her. Simply put, for both Freud and Jung, a mentally healthy personality is one that develops through the cultivation of these dialogues. A healthy relationship at the intrapersonal level will lead a person to feel appropriately integrated within his or her environment and to experience positive interpersonal relations, and these in turn will reflect back to the person an affirming acknowledgement of self. By contrast, a mentally unstable personality is one that splits off aspects of the mind and isolates these parts from each other, thereby preventing their creative dialogue and disabling the development of personality as a whole.
The disagreement between Freud and Jung concerns the dynamic nature of intrapersonal dialogue, and their respective interpretations of this are themselves informed by their different conceptions of the unconscious. Thus, according to Jung, the unconscious has an autonomous nature. That is to say, for Jung, unconscious processes express self-awareness and a sense of identity that is experienced by the ego as separate to its own. In this respect the unconscious is said to have its own agenda, as it behaves as if it were a second consciousness within the personality (which is commonly referred to as an alter ego). Freud, by contrast, denies the unconscious its autonomy, regarding it instead as material of the ego that has been forgotten or repressed (1915, p. 148).
Although the ego in Freud’s model may experience communications of the unconscious as uncanny and unfamiliar – as a cauldron full of seething excitations (Freud 1933, p. 73) – they are nevertheless aspects that were once known and owned by the ego, and can again be known and owned. In Jung’s model, however, the communications of the autonomous unconscious have never been known by the ego and remain resolutely unknowable. In this respect, the ego is the recipient of new material from a source outside it.
Arguably, the ego assumes a more central role in Freud’s model than it does in Jung’s. For Freud the ego determines the extent of its own capacity (to contain and assimilate its emotional experiences) and that of the unconscious, which it cultivates as a store-room for its more troublesome and unwanted experiences. Unconscious material in this scenario is repressed by the ego as a defensive measure to protect itself from the traumatic feelings that would otherwise overwhelm it. By defending against its unwanted material, the ego facilitates a split in the overall personality and rejects those aspects that are incompatible with its conscious requirements.
The unconscious will always seek to reintegrate the repressed material of the ego back into ego-consciousness in order to maintain a cohesive and un-fragmented personality. But because the ego often does not want to engage in dialogue with it, the unconscious is forced to express its material to the ego in coded, symbolic language; for instance through neurotic disorders and symptoms (such as those Freud found in cases of hysteria where repressed feelings are displaced on to the physical body). In Freud’s model, intrapersonal dialogue is regressive in the sense that the unconscious contains and communicates to the ego those experiences the ego has failed to process. The expression of unconscious material is likewise symptomatic of a disturbed instinctual life and even of a diseased psyche as a colleague of Jung maintains (Jacobi 1959, p. 21).
Unlike Freud, Jung does not regard the unconscious as the mere gathering place of forgotten and repressed contents (Jung 1954a, par. 27). For Jung the unconscious has two different aspects: it is both personal and collective. While the personal unconscious is similar to the unconscious postulated by Freud, Jung’s concept of the collective unconscious places his understanding of intrapersonal dialogue at variance with that of Freud.
Jung regarded Freud’s understanding of the unconscious as unendurably narrow in its reductive causalism (Jung 1950, p. xxiii); and he subsequently conceives the collective unconscious as a vast repository of (archetypal) material that transcends the realm of the personal, and impresses upon the ego’s universal patterns or constellations of human experience. This unconscious material communicates itself to ego-consciousness through symbolic images that are often personified and always numinous in affect (Jung 1954b, par. 405; cf. par. 383).
The universal patterns themselves remain unconscious, but their images are made particular according to the ego-consciousness that perceives them. For instance, the archetypal pattern or constellation of spirit is universally applicable to every human being, but the ways in which spirit is experienced and conceptualized are as different and as various as there are different intuitions, feelings, thoughts or sensations of spiritedness.
Thus, by entering into dialogue with the collective unconscious, the ego encounters a realm of experience infinitely larger and more archaic than the totality of its own limited perspective.
For Jung, intrapersonal dialogue is not a matter of recovering memories of unprocessed personal experience as it was for Freud, but, rather, of discovering the possibilities and potential of human experience. Such discovery is achieved, Jung claims, through unrestricted dialogue between the ego and the autonomous unconscious. Their healthy relationship or dialogue is characterized by Jung as compensatory.
Thus, the more ego-consciousness is promoted as the primary function within the personality, the more the unconscious material strives for its realization, and vice versa (Jung 1954b, par. 425; 1914, par. 465). In this respect, the unconscious can be a helpful guide for the ego, as it redresses the ego’s one-sided prejudices, and reorientates the ego within the wider concerns of the personality as a whole.
Broadly speaking, Jung’s conception of the unconscious and its intrapersonal dialogue with ego-consciousness is more optimistic than Freud’s. While the Freudian model focuses on the ego’s failure to assimilate its experiences of past events, and construes the unconscious as an expression of this failure, the Jungian model focuses on the ego’s potential growth and its assimilation of new experiences acquired from an unconscious that is, in part, autonomous and collective. In contrast to the Freudian model, Jung’s model allows for an unconscious realm free from the conflict and pathology of personal experience (see Jacobi 1959, pp. 25–6).
Spirit possession: delusional or life-enhancing?
To be possessed by a spirit means that the ego has identified with the unconscious and has thereby dissociated itself from its normal conscious state. The different conceptions of the unconscious formulated by Freud and Jung inevitably lead to different interpretations of spirit possession. Thus, for Freud – who regards unconscious expression as symptomatic of a disturbed and traumatized ego – spirit possession is nothing more than a neurotic delusion. Freud writes, demons are bad and reprehensible wishes, derivates of instinctual impulses that have been repudiated and repressed, and possession is the suffering and phantasy of a sick man (1922, pp. 72, 100).
Just as Jung criticized Freud’s model of the unconscious for being too reductive with its focus on personal traumatic experience, Jung criticizes Freud’s diagnosis of spirit possession for reducing the otherness of the experience to a pathological experience of the ego’s making. Jung protests against Freud’s attempt to reduce spiritual experience to the rational terms of the ego; or, in his words, to unmask as illusion what the absurd superstition of the past took to be a devilish incubus, to whip away the disguises worn by the evil spirit and turn him back into a harmless poodle – in a word, reduce him to a psychological formula. (1939, par. 71)
Jung’s diagnosis of spirit possession is more ambiguous than that of Freud. As we shall see, spirit possession for Jung facilitates the transformation of the ego-personality, and it is the condition of this new ego-personality – rather than the process that enabled it – that is considered healthy or unhealthy (Jung 1921, par. 383). Furthermore, the condition of the new ego-personality will depend greatly on the condition of its previous incarnation. In this respect, possession is a state of potential, rather like pregnancy, which can give birth to a new form or future personality that may be healthy or unhealthy (Jung 1902, par. 136). Such a state does not necessarily indicate inferiority. It only means that something incompatible, unassimilated, and conflicting exists – perhaps as an obstacle, but also as a stimulus to greater effort, and so, perhaps, as an opening to new possibilities of achievement. (Jung 1921, par. 925)
Spirit Possession by a Complex
It could be argued that Jung’s conception of the dynamics of spirit possession shares greater affinity with the model of dissociation described by Freud’s early antagonist, Pierre Janet, than it does with that of Freud himself. Indeed, Jung himself expresses his debt to the French psychopathologists, Pierre Janet in particular, for our knowledge today of the extreme dissociability of consciousness (1948a, par. 202). Importantly, as we shall see, Jung’s labelling of Janet as a psychopathologist does not mean that he thought dissociation – the process Janet is thought, by some, to have discovered – is in itself pathological.
For Jung and Janet before him, the conscious personality is essentially multi-faceted, and it is able to splinter off into separate, autonomous parts. Earlier in this chapter these parts were described as streams of consciousness (by M. J. Field). Jung refers to them as complexes. These fragments of personality have their own peculiar character, including their own memories, and likes and dislikes; with some even developing their own sense of identity or self-awareness.
These complexes are equivalent to the possessing spirit that invades the familiar personality. Indeed, when Janet began to develop his theory of dissociation he made a connection between dissociated states and spirit possession. Thus, he observed that his traumatized and hysterical patients, when under hypnosis, would often exhibit multiple personalities that were apparently aware of each other; and in some instances they would refer to themselves as daimons (Janet 1889; 1894).
According to Jung, complexes manifest themselves as autonomous personifications of the split-off unconscious (1948a, par. 203). He writes, The more the unconscious is split off, the more formidable the shape in which it appears to the conscious mind – if not in divine form, then in the more unfavourable form of obsessions and outbursts of affect. Gods are personifications of unconscious contents. (1948b, par. 242; cf. 1921, par. 204)
Thus, for Jung, the unconscious is unconscious by degree, so that its corresponding material can be construed as either having or not having the potential for conscious integration. The greater the autonomy of the unconscious complex, the more imposing and unfamiliar is the personified form of the possessing spirit.
Lucy Huskinson, Analytical Psychology and Spirit Possession: Towards a Non-Pathological Diagnosis of Spirit Possession, Page 71-80
