Espirito Santo Diana
Instituto de Ciencias Sociais, Universidade de Lisboa, Lisbon, 1600-189 Portugal.
Anthropol Med. 2010 Dec;17(3):249-59. doi: 10.1080/13648470.2010.526497.
In this paper the author explores notions of illness and health among a particular group of spirit mediums in Havana: the Sociedad de Estudios Psicologicos Amor y Caridad Universal. For its members and leaders, the development of mediumship is not just therapeutic but prophylactic. And traumas (of spirits and persons) must not simply be acknowledged but metabolised through the execution of good mediumship. More importantly, people's existences are chemically and psychologically entangled with those of their protective spirits, making of their 'selves' systems, rather than bounded essences. The author argues that such concepts of personhood offer alternative modes of understanding the self in relation to forms of otherness, including dysfunction and pathology.
在本文中，作者探讨了哈瓦那一个特定的灵媒群体——“爱与普世慈善心理研究协会”（Sociedad de Estudios Psicologicos Amor y Caridad Universal）中的疾病与健康观念。对于其成员和领导者而言，灵媒能力的发展不仅具有治疗作用，还具有预防作用。而且（灵体和人的）创伤不仅必须被承认，还必须通过良好的灵媒实践来化解。更重要的是，人们的存在在化学和心理层面上与他们的守护灵相互纠缠，使他们的“自我”成为系统，而非有界限的本质。作者认为，这种人格观念提供了理解自我与他者形式（包括功能障碍和病理学）关系的替代模式。
