JOURNAL. Psychosis and Anthropology
beginning (23.10.2025)
The goal of this page is to write a little bit on possible anthropological approaches to what we call psychosis as often as possible, ideally every day. With my various obligations, that may be difficult, but it is still important for me to try.
My understanding of psychosis itself is primarily Lacanian; I ought to see therefore if there is any structuralist or post-structuralist approach I might take.
- On the other hand, is there psychosis as psychosis in societies which believe in magic or otherwise offer some way in which psychotic ways of understanding might be integrated into the symbolic order (universe?)?
- Why in the supposed postmodern (melancholic) society does there seem to be no place for psychosis, even when the (neurotic) grand narratives have fallen?
- In general, is a place for psychosis possible in a “rational” culture?
- Psychosis of course is (despite foreclosure and remaining outside the symbolic order) nevertheless in relation with culture
- What does it mean that psychosis is outside of the symbolic order?
- Psychotic members of the collective sensitive to what is not covered by the symbolic (doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-92895-1_3, de la Torre)
- This author seems to take a very Lacanian approach, which should be useful to me
- I may steal Berger and Luckmann’s “symbolic universe” to refer to the symbolic order on an intersubjective level
- Shamanism seems to allow the psychotic to socially occupy the position of knowledge, which they already occupy in their own structure (neurotics do not, perverts do but seem to manage elsewise)
These are very disconnected points so far, but what has inspired me so far is this: depending on culture, what we might think of as a psychotic symptom and classify as pathological may have its place in the culture: hallucinations might be the magical gift of a shaman. In a “rational” culture, life as a psychotic is very difficult. Hallucinations are no longer to be taken seriously, but something to be treated. Now, although I personally do not believe that anything supernatural might cause “visions” (hallucinations), it nevertheless seems quite unfortunate that the lives of countless psychotics have been made casualty to this advancement in our understanding of the world. What about a rational culture excludes the psychotic, and is there any possibility that psychosis may regain its social role?
- “religious movements were interpreted as the socialization of psychosis (Jones, 1916; Benedict, 1935; Mead, 1949; La Barre, 1970; Devereux, 1978)” (Littlewood, doi.org/10.1111/j.2044-8341.1980.tb02544.x)
- “Typical of these difficulties was the long-standing debate on the mental health of the shaman. Solutions which suggested that the shaman was abnormal in relation to a pan-human norm but normal in relation to a particular society (Devereux, 1970) merely replaced the idea of primitive societies by that of sick societies. Tribal peoples, like psychotics, children and our own ancestors, were supposed to operate a less disguised symbolism with a minimum of secondary process thinking.” (c.d.)
- “An ‘inconstant disciple’ of Durkheim, Levi-Strauss assumes, with George Kelly, that we are primarily motivated to make sense of our situation (Levi-Strauss, 1966, 1968).”
- Cited: The Savage Mind, Structural Anthropology