| Title |
More Things in Heaven and Earth: Spirit Possession, Mental Disorder, and Intentionality
|
|---|---|
| Published in |
Journal of Medical Humanities, July 2018
|
| DOI | 10.1007/s10912-018-9519-z |
| Pubmed ID | |
| Authors |
Mohammed Abouelleil Rashed |
| Abstract |
Spirit possession is a common phenomenon around the world in which a non-corporeal agent is involved with a human host. This manifests in a range of maladies or in displacement of the host's agency and identity. Prompted by engagement with the phenomenon in Egypt, this paper draws connections between spirit possession and the concepts of personhood and intentionality. It employs these concepts to articulate spirit possession, while also developing the intentional stance as formulated by Daniel Dennett. It argues for an understanding of spirit possession as the spirit stance: an intentional strategy that aims at predicting and explaining behaviour by ascribing to an agent (the spirit) beliefs and desires but is only deployed once the mental states and activity of the subject (the person) fail specific normative distinctions. Applied to behaviours that are generally taken to signal mental disorder, the spirit stance preserves a peculiar form of intentionality where behaviour would otherwise be explained as a consequence of a malfunctioning physical mechanism. Centuries before the modern disciplines of psychoanalysis and phenomenological-psychopathology endeavoured to restore meaning to 'madness,' the social institution of spirit possession had been preserving the intentionality of socially deviant behaviour. |
X Demographics
The data shown below were collected from the profiles of 39 X users who shared this research output. Click here to find out more about how the information was compiled.
Geographical breakdown
| Country | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| United Kingdom | 10 | 26% |
| United States | 6 | 15% |
| Saudi Arabia | 2 | 5% |
| France | 1 | 3% |
| Netherlands | 1 | 3% |
| Slovenia | 1 | 3% |
| Pakistan | 1 | 3% |
| Greece | 1 | 3% |
| Unknown | 16 | 41% |
Demographic breakdown
| Type | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Members of the public | 24 | 62% |
| Practitioners (doctors, other healthcare professionals) | 8 | 21% |
| Scientists | 6 | 15% |
| Science communicators (journalists, bloggers, editors) | 1 | 3% |
Mendeley readers
The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 38 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.
Geographical breakdown
| Country | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Unknown | 38 | 100% |
Demographic breakdown
| Readers by professional status | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Student > Ph. D. Student | 7 | 18% |
| Student > Doctoral Student | 6 | 16% |
| Student > Bachelor | 5 | 13% |
| Researcher | 4 | 11% |
| Professor > Associate Professor | 2 | 5% |
| Other | 6 | 16% |
| Unknown | 8 | 21% |
| Readers by discipline | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Psychology | 8 | 21% |
| Medicine and Dentistry | 5 | 13% |
| Nursing and Health Professions | 3 | 8% |
| Philosophy | 2 | 5% |
| Social Sciences | 2 | 5% |
| Other | 7 | 18% |
| Unknown | 11 | 29% |
Attention Score in Context
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 25. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 09 March 2024.
All research outputs
#1,545,780
of 25,795,662 outputs
Outputs from Journal of Medical Humanities
#18
of 426 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#31,343
of 341,559 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Journal of Medical Humanities
#1
of 14 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 25,795,662 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 94th percentile: it's in the top 10% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 426 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a little more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 7.3. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 95% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 341,559 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 90% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 14 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 92% of its contemporaries.