Sage Journals: Discover world-class research

Abstract

This paper aims to explore, within a contemporary psychoanalytic framework, the meaning of two historically related concepts: demonic possession and evil. These dramatic and age-old portrayals of psychological abnormality are worth investigating for two reasons; firstly, because of their persistence within a Western culture ostensibly dominated by rational and scientific discourses and, secondly, because their supernatural status has traditionally served to insulate them from secular psychological interpretation. This paper will argue that evil and demonic possession are useful metaphors for understanding destructive aspects of human psychological functioning, and that, despite their historical location in supernatural discourses, they are comprehensible in secular psychological terms. Psychoanalysis employs rational concepts to understand these ‘supernatural’ phenomena. However, this paper concludes by questioning whether the ontological status of the internal world portrayed by psychoanalysis is fundamentally different to the mythical universe of supernatural forces and demonic entities.

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Bollas

(1995). The structure of evil. In cracking up: unconscious work in self experience (pp. 180–220). London: Routledge.

Cavendish

(1967). The black arts. London: Routledge.

Ellenberger

H.F.

(1970). The discovery of the unconscious: the history and evolution of dynamic psychiatry. London: Fontana Press.

Freud

(1961). The standard edition of the complete psychological works of Sigmund Freud, volumes 1–24. London: Hogarth Press.

Freud

Breuer

(1895) [1961]. Studies on hysteria. In The standard edition of the complete psychological works of Sigmund Freud, volume 2. London: Penguin.

Freud

(1901) [1961]. The psychopathology of everyday life, The standard edition of the complete psychological works of Sigmund Freud, volume 6. London: Penguin.

Freud

(1923) [1961]. A seventeenth-century demonological neurosis. In The standard edition of the complete psycho logical works of Sigmund Freud, volume 19. London: Hogarth Press.

Freud

(1960). New introductory lectures on psychoanalysis. Hammondsworth: Penguin Books.

George

(1995). Alternative realities. New York: Facts on File.

10.

Hinshelwood

(1994). Clinical Klein. London: Free Association Books.

11.

Ivey

(1993). Psychodynamic aspects of demonic possession and satanic worship. South African journal of psychology, 23, pp.186–194.

12.

Kahn

(1983). The evil hand. In Hidden selves (pp. 139–182). New York: International Universities Press.

13.

Klein

(1940). Mourning and its relation to manic-depressive states. In Klein

(1988) Love, guilt and reparation and other works 1921–1945 (pp. 344–369). London: Virago Press.

14.

Klein

(1946). Notes on some schizoid mechanisms. In Klein

(1988), Envy and gratitude and other works 1946–1963 (pp. 1–24). London: Virago Press.

15.

Laplanche

Pontalis

J.B.

(1973). The language of psychoanalysis. London: Karnac Books.

16.

Ogden

(1994). Subjects of analysis. London: Karnac Books.

17.

Philp

(1958). Jung and the problem of evil. London: Rockliff.

18.

Phillips

(1994). On flirtation. London: Faber & Faber.

19.

Phillips

(1995). Terrors and experts. London: Faber & Faber.

20.

Prins

(1992). Besieged by devils – thoughts on possession and possession states. Medicine, Science and Law, 32, 237–246.

21.

Rogo

(1974). Demonic possession and parapsychology. Parapsychology Review, November-December, 18–24.

22.

Schafer

(1972). Internalization: Process or fantasy. The Psychoanalytic Study of the Child, 27, 411–436.

23.

Strachey

(1961). Preface to a seventeenth-century demonol ogical neurosis. In Standard edition of the complete psychological works of Sigmund Freud, 19 (pp. 69–105). London: Hogarth Press.

Diabolical Discourses: Demonic Possession and Evil in Modern Psychopathology

Abstract

Get full access to this article

References