Submission to British Journal Of Psychiatry Correspondence Column – 3.11.04

Anthropology and psychiatry

From the perspective of anthropological psychiatry, Harland, Morgan and Hutchinson (2004) suggest that the social change experienced by migrants may predispose to schizophrenia.  The same may apply to other forms of social change, such as those changes which lead to revitalisation phenomena and New Religious Movements (NRMs).  Psychiatric anthropologists who have studied NRMs have pointed out that new forms of belief system may originate in the hallucinatory or delusional experience of a single individual (Littlewood, 1984).  Wallace (1956) applied the term “mazeway resynthesis” to the change in belief system which occurs in prophets, the mazeway being to the individual what culture is to society, so that the prophet awakes to a new reality which he then tries to impart to followers;  if he succeeds, he becomes the leader of a NRM;  if he fails, he is alienated from his parent group and is likely to be labelled as mentally ill.  Foulkes (1977) compared the prophet to the schizophrenic patient, and noted that they shared not only the capacity to undergo a radical change in belief system but also various “premorbid” features.

   For many years population geneticists have been surprised that the genetic tendency to schizophrenia is maintained in spite of the reduced fertility of those affected (Crow, 1996).  However, the fertility of cult leaders is often increased, due to increased mating opportunities within the cult, and to the possibility of an “adaptive radiation” in a new land following the inevitable social and geographical alienation of cult from parent group.  If the genes responsible for schizophrenia and prophetic experience were the same, it is possible that the fecundity of successful cult leaders might balance the loss of genes both in schizophrenic patients and in unsuccessful cult leaders (Price & Stevens, 1998).

   Such evolutionary speculations are independent of the proximal causes of schizophrenia, which might be a neurodevelopmental disorder, or might even be part of the extended phenotype of a micro-organism.  But they do suggest that if we find something in the brains of our patients, we should ask our psychiatric anthropological colleagues to look for the same thing in the brains of the founders of New Religious Movements.

Crow, T.J. (1995) A Darwinian approach to the origins of psychosis.  British Journal of Psychiatry, 167, 12-25.

Foulks, E.F. (1977) Schizophrenia and revitalisation in pre-modern societies.  In Psychiatry:  Areas of Promise and Advancement:  A Bicentennial Volume of the University of Pensylvania (eds J.P.Brady, J.Mendels, M.T.Orne & W.Rieger), pp. 137-144.  New York: Spectrum Publications.  .

Harland, R., Morgan, C. & Hutchinson, G. (2004) Phenomenology, science and the anthropology of the self: a new model for the aetiology of psychosis.  British Journal Of Psychiatry, 185, 361-362.

Littlewood, R. (1984) The imitation of madness: the influence of psychopathology upon culture.  Social Science and Medicine, 19, 705-715.

Price, J.S. & Stevens, A. (1998) The human male socialisation strategy set:  cooperation, defection, individualism, and schizotypy.  Evolution and Human Behavior, 19, 58-70.  (Text may be read at www.johnprice.me.uk).

Wallace, A.F.C. (1956) Mazeway resynthesis:  a biocultural theory of religious inspiration.  Transactions of the New York Academy of Sciences, 18, 626-638.

J.S.Price   Odintune Place, Plumpton, East Sussex BN7 3AN

johnscottprice@hotmail.com

Declaration of interest:  none.

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