Abstract
A. CERTHOUX, previously director of the psychiatric hospital in Martinique, endeavours to relate different Martiniquan family types of organization to different degrees of mental illness or psychological tensions. He concludes by showing that stability and affective security in the family are more important than specific types of family organization. In issue number 14 of this Review, K. Ravenscroft, p. 51, and E. D. Wittkower, p. 53, have given descriptions of Voodoo possession states. In a substantial work, E. DOUYON, based on his experiences in Haiti, attempts to explain their occurence by comparing the personality of those who fall into trance with the personality of those who never do. Significant differences were observed in the personality as well as in the life history of the two sets of individuals. The possessed subjects showed an anxious, disturbed, and depressed personality; and their life history was definitely marked by events which seem to have predisposed them to trance. The nature of the trance seems to be related to this type of personality.
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