A Psychoanalytic study of the relationship between schizophrenia, sorcery, and superstition, with special reference to empathy

Abstract

This thesis purports to examine the contention that there is a relationship obtaining between schizophrenic processes as found in Western complex cultures, and witchcraft magic and sorcery as practised by primitive This word is not used in a derogatory sense. It is used only to differentiate a comparatively simple from a structurally complex culture. cultures. Psychoanalytic interpretations of witchcraft are by no means rare, and in this study only one small corner of the problem is approached - the relationship of the superego to sorcery, empathy, and schizophrenia. A group of hospitalized patients was studied, and their productions compared with the beliefs and behaviours of primitives, to see which theoretical system is of the most value in the interpretation of primitive magic. Whether Klein's concept of universal developmental stages, Klein believes that anxiety states, the content of which is comparable to that found in adult psychotics, are part of the developmental process of the infant. The abnormal infant differs from the normal only to the extent that psychotic anxieties and defence mechanisms dominate mental life. the anxiety content of which is comparable to that found in adult psychotics, is useful in explaining sorcery, is a hypothesis intensiverly examined.