Citation

Littlewood R, Dein S. Transcult. Psychiatry 2013; 50(3): 397-420.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2013, McGill University, Publisher SAGE Publishing)

DOI

10.1177/1363461513489681

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Both geographically and historically, schizophrenia may have emerged from a psychosis that was more florid, affective, labile, shorter lived and with a better prognosis. It is conjectured that this has occurred with a reflexive self-consciousness in Western and globalising societies, a development whose roots lie in Christianity. Every theology also presents a psychology. Six novel aspects of Christianity may be significant for the emergence of schizophrenia--an omniscient deity, a decontexualised self, ambiguous agency, a downplaying of immediate sensory data, and a scrutiny of the self and its reconstitution in conversion.

Language: en