L'hystérique et le Djin amoureux (Réflexions ethnopsychanalytiques sur un cas de possession par le Djin en Kabylie)

The hysterical person and the djin in love. Possession by the djin is a phenomenon found in certain forms of belief which falls both within the province of medicine and culture. Though it may express a hysterical psychopathology as in the case analysed here, it does not mean it is only that. Besides, as in any psychopathology, possession by the djin supposes a therapy which is already part of therapeutic practices said to be "traditional" or "primitive". Are they efficient or inefficient ? For C. Levi-Strauss, they have "a symbolic efficiency" ; for G. Devereux, they lack "insight", which compromises their efficiency. In reality, perhaps this is not the question. The important point is less to prove their efficiency or inefficiency than to understand the theoretical implications in which they engage the researcher. Only a few elements are given here, in order to show that these practices are inseparable from their cultural context and that, before deciding their efficiency, it is necessary to understand some aspects of this culture and above all, to identify, to clarify and to recognize what the unconscious is here. For, in the end, it is thus that psychoanalytic anthropology can be something other than applied psychoanalysis freed from a limiting ethnocentrism and an illusory evolutionism

Context (archaeology · Epistemology · Ethnocentrism · Humanities · Phenomenon · Possession (linguistics · Psychoanalysis · Psychoanalytic theory · Sociology · Unconscious mind · African Studies and Ethnography · History · Language, Linguistics, Cultural Analysis · Multiculturalism, Politics, Migration, Gender · Philosophy · Psychology · Social Psychology