Ethos
August 27, 2026
Johanna Bard Richlin
Avatar Faculty: Ecstatic Transformations in Religion and Video Games, by Jeffrey Snodgrass, compiles and compares the author's varied ethnographic research on two forms of ecstatic experience: Religious possession in India (Rajasthan) and video game play in India (Udaipur) and the United States (Colorado).In this ambitious and unexpected juxtaposition, Snodgrass argues that both experiences...
Ethos
March 17, 2025
Nicholas J. Long
1 citation
Abstract Drawing on ethnographic data collected over 16 months of fieldwork with Indonesian hypnotherapists, this article investigates the suitability of different relationalities for providing therapeutic care. Clinical literature often advocates the merits of self‐hypnosis over hetero‐hypnosis, while anthropologists express skepticism regarding therapies that encourage individualized regimes...
Ethos
September 1, 2015
Nofit Itzhak
20 citations
AbstractAnthropological accounts of healing tend to draw, either explicitly or implicitly, on the notion of “symbolic” healing initially developed in Lévi‐Strauss's seminal article, “The Effectiveness of Symbols.” Within this framework, therapeutic efficacy is understood as the result of a transformation of meaning or the manipulation of symbols. This article seeks to challenge and refine this...
Ethos
August 4, 2010
Rebecca Seligman
74 citations
AbstractDiscontinuities in the experience of self are distressing especially when they are unexpected, unsanctioned, and resist attribution. Such discontinuities are often a product of psychosocial and physical suffering. In this article I present a model of self that incorporates bodily experience as a fundamental building block and key source of discontinuity for a sense of self. Analysis of...
Ethos
September 1, 2008
Joseph D. Calabrese
51 citations
AbstractEuro‐American theories of psychotherapeutic intervention focus on therapist behavior or the therapeutic relationship, conceived in dyadic terms. The cultural prototype is individualistic and rationalistic: a one‐to‐one conversation in which the patient discloses and discusses innermost feelings in regular office visits. This may be appropriate for modern Euro‐Americans. However,...
Ethos
June 1, 2008
Emma Cohen, Justin L. Barrett
AbstractWe report the findings of a programmatic series of studies designed to investigate the cognitive underpinnings of cross‐culturally recurrent forms of possession belief. Possession phenomena are frequently portrayed in the anthropological literature as incompatible with common cultural assumptions and biases guiding Western notions of “self” and “personhood” and as resisting...
Ethos
December 1, 1984
Colleen Ward
42 citations
EthosVolume 12, Issue 4 p. 307-334 Thaipusam in Malaysia: A Psycho-Anthropological Analysis of Ritual Trance, Ceremonial Possession and Self-Mortification Practices COLLEEN WARD, COLLEEN WARD COLLEEN WARD is Lecturer in Psychology, Department of Social Work, National University of Singapore, Kent Ridge, Singapore.Search for more papers by this author COLLEEN WARD, COLLEEN WARD COLLEEN WARD is...