Cultural Psychology

In order to better cope with the pressures and stresses of the current day, modern psychology is anxiously seeking to find new therapies to address the increasing disorders within the human psyche. In the process new fields of research, such as humanistic and transpersonal psychology, curiously appear to borrow more and more from the wisdom of the ages. This volume, containing eighteen articles by noteworthy expositors of the perennial philosophy such as Huston Smith, Seyyed Hossein Nasr, and Frithjof Schuon, presents the spiritual psychology of the wisdom traditions as a much-needed antidote to the current impasse in modern psychology.

Some Endorsements for Psychology and the Perennial Philosophy:

“[Psychology and the Perennial Philosophy] is more than an anthology. It is a wisely crafted collection of classic and contemporary scholarship noting that what many are seeking is what has always been, a perennial philosophy, that remains foundational. As one of the authors, Tage Lindbom, properly notes, ‘Secularization is a fish in troubled waters.’ This book claims the waters and is essential reading for all those who may have forgotten or are simply ignorant of the rich foundation provided by the perennial philosophy.”
—Ralph W. Hood, Professor of Psychology at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, past president of the Psychology of Religion division of the American Psychological Association, co-founder of The International Journal for the Psychology of Religion and co-author of The Psychology of Religion

“A necessary and bracing critique of the assumptions and limitations of contemporary Western psychology, this generous volume is also a passionate call and learned guide towards a truer perspective that embraces man's spiritual nature.”
—Gabor Maté, M.D., and author of In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction

“Knowing the nature of the mind is perhaps the most difficult undertaking, especially in today’s world. To comprehend the nature of mind one needs to turn to the domain of religion and spirituality. Yet the truth of the mind and its complexity cannot explicitly be defined in words. Inner or transcendent wisdom sees the mind’s own nature without the duality of the seer. Suchness (tathatā) of mind is only experiential and not expressible. The words used to describe thought are themselves a product of thought, which is conditioned and limited. Thus, differences and contradictions are unavoidable. Therefore, a comparative study of different viewpoints and commentaries is immensely important to awaken the inner intelligence to see the mind as it is. Psychology and the Perennial Philosophy: Studies in Comparative Religion edited by Samuel Bendeck Sotillos is an outstanding effort in this direction.”
—Samdhong Rinpoche, former Prime Minister (Kalon Tripa) of the Tibetan Government-in-exile, author of Uncompromising Truth for a Compromised World: Tibetan Buddhism and Today’s World

“The rise of psychology has impacted the study and practice of spirituality, the experiences and attitudes relevant to ultimate human values that transcend ordinary behavior. Each chapter of this remarkable book demonstrates this interaction in a unique and provocative way. But rather than using psychology to reduce and ‘psychologize’ spiritual topics, its authors demonstrate how directives from the spiritual traditions can enhance and even illuminate the enduring importance of psychology in the 21st century.”
—Stanley Krippner, Saybrook University, co-author of Spiritual Dimensions of Healing

“The work at hand is a thinking and debating man’s delight. If you have any interest at all in attempting to include an educated and enlightened view of man’s higher functions in your purview of the world, you will learn from and enjoy this collection of essays. If you already have some knowledge in this area, brace yourself: you may see some of your favorites sharply criticized. A thought-provoking work.”
—Bruce W. Scotton, University of California, San Francisco, co-editor of Textbook of Transpersonal Psychiatry and Psychology

“This book, superbly edited by Samuel Bendeck Sotillos, is a masterful critique of the field of psychology and its loss of the sacred ground in which it once was rooted. It offers depth psychologists an opportunity to contemplate timeless truths echoed through the centuries by perennial philosophers who have always claimed psyche is subordinate to Spirit. Although ignored in depth psychology’s early years due to prejudice and lack of understanding, this is a message today’s psychotherapists must take seriously. Human beings need a deeper and wider transpersonal vision of who and what we are, which the saints and sages of the world’s spiritual traditions have always pointed to. In psychotherapy with a therapist committed to such a vision, patients penetrate into their unconscious depths and not infrequently awaken to the Ground of all Being. Their suffering itself occurred because they had turned away from Spirit. Above all, this volume passionately calls upon depth psychology to remember its origin in the perennial wisdom at the core of the great religions. There is something of a polemic in these pages. It deserves to be considered by depth psychologists of all persuasions.”
—Bryan Wittine, Transpersonal psychologist and Jungian psychoanalyst

“This anthology from Samuel Bendeck Sotillos is a must reference for anyone who is interested in psychology and its relationship to spirituality, and in developing an inclusive dialogue between disciplines that favor an integral outlook on the person and his or her potential. Selections in this anthology will inspire us to reexamine the metaphysical underpinnings of psychology, and remind us how important it is to rise above science’s attempt to reduce the human being to an epistemic object.”
—Sangeetha Menon, National Institute of Advanced Studies (Bangalore, India), Board Member of the International Transpersonal Association (ITA), author of The Beyond Experience: Consciousness in Bhagavad Gita

“This anthology has some of the most discerning essays and reviews on spirituality and psychology, which provide much-needed care and caution to all those engaged in bringing them together or who wish to do so in future. Therefore, it is a must-read for all those who teach, research, consult, or study in such frontier areas as transpersonal psychology, states of consciousness, mind-body relation, holistic health, Indian psychology, and so on. It will be an invaluable textbook for courses in these and other related areas. I congratulate the editor of the book.”
—Kiran Kumar K. Salagame, University of Mysore (India), Board Member of the International Transpersonal Association (ITA), author of The Psychology of Meditation: A Contextual Approach

“One of the finest collections of essays on the Perennial Philosophy—a must-read for all psychologists who are engaged with spirituality and transpersonal psychology. The essays which critique modern psychology (including transpersonal psychology, and the framework of Carl Jung), in the light of the Perennial Philosophy are a revelation and make compelling reading. The book serves as a corrective to the excesses of modern psychology, and to this end Sotillos has done a commendable job. I for one will include the book in some of the graduate courses that I teach.”
—Suneet Varma, University of Delhi, co-editor of Foundations of Indian Psychology

“To its credit modern science by-and-large is becoming more cognizant of the essential connection between spirituality and psychological health and well-being and most of all its positive implications within the field of psychology. While there is ample data to document this in a plethora of academic journals and books, this new book Psychology and the Perennial Philosophy adds a novel contribution to the dialogue between psychology and spirituality, which captures many nuances that for the most part go unnoticed within these discussions, and last but not least, it provides a keen eye of discernment to understand this intricate relationship on a deeper level that is crucially needed. This work will be a valuable asset to students and long term mental health practitioners and professors alike who seek to better understand the relationship between psychology and spirituality.”
—Harold G. Koenig, Duke University, Director of the Center for Spirituality, Theology and Health, co-author of The Handbook of Religion and Health

There are more types of borders today than ever before in history. Borders of all kinds define every aspect of social life in the twenty-first century. From the biometric data that divides the smallest aspects of our bodies to the aerial drones that patrol the immense expanse of our domestic and international airspace, we are defined by borders. They can no longer simply be understood as the geographical divisions between nation-states. Today, their form and function has become too complex, too hybrid. What we need now is a theory of the border that can make sense of this hybridity across multiple domains of social life.

Rather than viewing borders as the result or outcome of pre-established social entities like states, Thomas Nail reinterprets social history from the perspective of the continual and constitutive movement of the borders that organize and divide society in the first place. Societies and states are the products of bordering, Nail argues, not the other way around. Applying his original movement-oriented theoretical framework "kinopolitics" to several major historical border regimes (fences, walls, cells, and checkpoints), Theory of the Border pioneers a new methodology of "critical limology," that provides fresh tools for the analysis of contemporary border politics.

This milestone text provides a comprehensive and state-of-the art overview of perfectionism theory, research, and treatment from the past 25 years, with contributions from the leading researchers in the field. The book examines new theories and perspectives including the social disconnection model of perfectionism and the 2 × 2 model of perfectionism. It also reviews empirical findings, with a special focus on stress, vulnerability, and resilience, and examines perfectionism in specific populations. Finally, it considers how perfectionism relates to physical health and psychophysiological processes and introduces new approaches to effective prevention and treatment. By increasing our understanding of perfectionism as a complex personality disposition and providing a framework for future explorations, this landmark publication aims to promote further research in this field. It will be invaluable reading for academics, students, and professionals in personality psychology, clinical and counselling psychology, applied psychology and related disciplines.

This paper explores Mary Catherine Bateson's critique of individualism and argument for the recognition and development of interdependence. Individualism is presented as a cornerstone of American culture, forming a constellation along with analytic thinking, methodological individualism and free market capitalism. This constellation stands in opposition to and is held in place by the constellation of collectivism, holistic thinking, methodological holism and socialism/ communism. These constellations and their dimensions are viewed as static and reified and polarized to the extent that they are no longer useful. Creativity is introduced as a factor for change and the elements of process and transformation. The discussion is contextualized drawing on examples from both academia and popular culture.

SUMMARY FC Bartlett and LS Vygotsky were two seminal figures in the psychological study of remembering. Both emphasized the role of meaning and imagination in this process. Bartlett did this by showing the systematic and holistic changes that ensue when cultural material is repeatedly reproduced outside of the group to which it belongs. Vygotsky, on the other hand, attended to the ways in which we construct meaningful―signs‖ as artificial memory aids to solve memory problems that go beyond our natural capacities. These two ...

The present article addresses the question of ‘When can we say something is creative?’ and, in answering it, takes a critical stand towards past and present scientific definitions of creativity. It challenges an implicit assumption in much psychological theory and research that creativity exists as an ‘objective’ feature of persons or products, universally recognised and independent of social agreement and cultural systems of norms and beliefs. Focusing on everyday life creative outcomes, the article includes both theoretical accounts and empirical examples from a research exploring creativity evaluations in the context of folk art. In the end, a multi-layered perspective of creativity assessment emerges, integrating dimensions such as newness and originality, value and usefulness, subjective reception and cultural reception of creative products. Implications for how we understand and study creativity are discussed.

Mental health is not considered only as absence of mental disorders, but rather as the achievement of higher standards of available psychical potentials. True devotion and obedience to The God give the one a huge and incredible strength, constant source of spiritual emotional and moral energy, which is of help in resisting destructive and slavery attacks of the environment and its materialisticconsuming tendencies, as well as social and mental disruption. According to the opinion of numerous worldwide recognized mental health experts, humankind of today is confronted with a number of problems, which are the consequence of spiritual and moral-ethical degradation of human being. Therefore, religiosity became the field of interest of mental health researchers. The results of new studies undoubtedly indicate beneficial effects of religion on life and mental health in humans. Religiosity reduces tendencies for risky behaviour, impulsive reactions and aggression; it corrects tendencies towards psychopathic and paranoid behaviour, reduces converse, depressive and schizoid tendency, and provides successful overcome of emotional conflicts. In comparison to low-religious adolescents, the factors such as inner conflicts, frustration, fear, anxiety, psychological trauma, low self-esteem, unbalance of psychical homeostasis, emotional instability, and negative psychical energy are less present in highly religious adolescents and neutralized in a healthier and more efficient way. Beneficial impact of religion on mental health derives from precise cognitive-behavioural patterns, which provide a clear life orientation, solid basis and safe frames for personality development, assuring human to be continually on the way to achieve its own generic essence and reach its own maturity and self-actualization.

This newspaper column from 2003 examines how Indians in Trinidad and Tobago are misled, guided by so many fears, the encouragement of feelings of victimhood, and smallness of vision. There is an important contribution for Indians to make to the building of this New World civilisation, which is still in its infancy and only half-made. What is needed is a vision, mission and leadership not griping about “discrimination”, but looking fearlessly to the future.

This study examined the conceptions of the right to literacy of rural Zulu adolescents in post-apartheid South Africa. Its aim was to investigate the development of human rights in a traditional society during an era of historic change. Adolescents in three age groups (N = 72, Mage = 11:1, 15:9, and 18:9) endorsed the right in the general (100%) and three formal defining criteria (92%-100%). In nine conflict assessments involving the preservation of culture, parental authority, and gender roles, they supported the right to literacy (64%-100%), but also maintained

We will present a theoretical and methodological model of academic psychological training. In our view, the main goal of psychological training is to promote the competence underlying professional know how. Professional systems base their image on their capacity both to develop the client’s own commitment and to manage the demands of society and the representation people have of the role of the psychologist. The degree in Psychology has to be anchored to the profession and its development, to the geographical area and its context, namely to the way this area is culturally and symbolically interpreted (Cfr. Carli & Paniccia, 2003), since this interpretation involves constraints and opportunities.  For instance the social representation of psychology in the context of the small town in southern Italy (Lecce)  where we work mainly involves the request to intervene in individual cases.  This kind of request is dangerous, for it is not in line with the requirements of the job market, par...

This chapter considers cultural dimensions to be a theory-guided framework within which to approach the wealth of psychological differences across diverse cultural groups. First, a few reflective statements will provide some background to the topic. This is followed by an overview of the current state of research on these dimensions in general, as well as in the area of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and prolonged grief disorder (PGD). The goal of this chapter is to encourage research which takes more of the so-called contextual factors into account when describing or analyzing posttrauma or postbereavement individuals, groups, or communities.

It will be shown that at least four foundational concepts of Cultural Historical Activity Theory were previously formulated by Hegel, viz., (1) the unit of analysis as a key concept for analytic-synthetic cognition, (2) the centrality of artifact-mediated actions, (3) the definitive distinction between goal and motive in activities, and (4) the distinction between a true concept and a pseudoconcept.

Suppose a stranger throws himself in front of a car to save the life of a child about to be run over or a dying wealthy man decides to give all his wealth to charity at no gains to himself. What motivates that stranger to act, causing absolute harm to himself and death with no reward received in return? What motivates the dying man who has nothing to gain from charity decide to give away his fortunes to complete strangers? One answer is pure altruism, the selfless concern for others’ wellbeing at the cost of one’s own wellbeing, time, or energy. This would be a satisfactory answer that seems to have been accepted society, that selflessness can truly exist. However, there are serious concerns about the selfless aspect of altruism with some scholars, such as evolutionary psychologists and proponents of the social exchange theory, claiming that it is not merely unlikely for it to exist, but that it is outright impossible, while others counter these claims be it through innate, biologically, or religious conviction of divinely acquired selflessness or Batson’s infamous empathy-altruism hypothesis. Regardless of which route one takes, the means to the end do not require proper identification to notice that humans do participate in behavior that penalizes them and benefits others, but the question is can and do they do so independently of self-interest?

Abstract
Honor values articulate gender roles, the importance of reputation in maintaining one’s place in society, and maintaining respect for the groups one belongs to. In that sense honor provides a template for organizing social interactions and hence may be functional even among people and societies that do not report valuing and endorsing honor.  We test the prediction that honor influences judgment and attention when activated in two experiments (N=538). Using a culture-as-situated cognition perspective, we predicted that activating one aspect of honor would activate other aspects, even among individuals who do not much endorse honor values. We tested these predictions among European Americans, a group that is not typically associated with honor values. In each study, participants were randomly assigned to experimental or control groups, which differed in one way: the experimental group read statements about honor values as a first step and the control group did not. Participants then judged stick-figure pairs (judging which is male; Study 1, n = 130) or made lexical decisions (judging whether a letter-string formed a correctly spelled word; Study 2, n = 408). In Study 1, experimental group participants were more likely to choose the visually agentic figure as male. In Study 2, experimental group participants were more accurate at noticing that the letter-string formed a word if the word was an honor-relevant word (e.g., noble), but they did not differ from the control group if the word was irrelevant to honor (e.g., happy). Participants in both studies were just above the neutral point in their endorsement of honor values. Individual differences in honor values endorsement did not moderate the effects of activating an honor mindset. Though honor is often described as if it is located in space, we did not find clear effects of where our letter strings were located on the computer screen. Our findings suggest a new way to consider how honor functions, even in societies in which honor is not a highly endorsed value.

Do children perceive the world they are living in as a social order? At the end of the 1990s, Bernard Zarca investigated what he called the "social sense" of children, defined as an individual ability to rank diverse occupations. The study reported here relies on the same kind of task methodology assumed by this author (we also asked children to rank several occupations), but our framework is a collective one-which allows us to observe classifications as actions embedded in children interactions. Rather than focusing statistically on products of the practice (how children have classified), we pay greater ethnographic attention to the design of the practice itself (how children are classifying). We show that the children's relationship to social order cannot be understood without taking into consideration: 1) the means that children can use to express this kind of relationship; 2) the concrete situation in which this relationship is expressed. Our study suggests that the cultural possibility of classifying should be distinguished from the dispositions and the interests to actually classify. In fact, in the context of real interactions, a person's social situation is always involved, and thus, ranking always means self--ranking.

The article provides a framework of the Self, understood as a dynamic semiotic system in constant evolutive tension rather than a system in equilibrium adapting to the environmental changing conditions. The aim of the whole special issue is indeed to provide new hints for the reflection about the relationship between Self and semiosis, from both the theoretical and philosophical points of view. The articles of Salvatore, Luleci and Silva Filho & Dazzani, discuss the relationship between the Self and the ideas of context, agency, belief and action as co-constitutive of the subject. The Self, as high level semiotic instance, is the process that results of and regulates the uniqueness of the experience in irreversible time. The continuity of the stream of Self and the culturally codified ways of producing signs about the experience in the world are also discussed. The articles of de Souza, de Mattos & Chavez, Fivush, Simao & Sampaio, instead, discuss the process of semiosis in differen...

Based on language as a parameter; see <ethnologue.org> for the latest figure. 30 Dept. of Economic and Social Affairs (2009). 31 This was pointed out by the Worldwatch Institute, Washington, already in the 1990s (Biehahn 1993). Since language is a criterion, it should be noted that UNESCO reports 2500 endangered languages (Moseley 2010; Huaman 2011).

In this essay I examine the racial achievement gap in American education in terms of an impaired psychosocial developmental process. I argue that the well-documented academic underperformance of certain minority groups may stem from the unfavorable resolution of a key developmental crisis in constituent members’ early scholastic experience. I go on to suggest that individual educators can play an important role in eliminating the achievement gap by changing the way they teach in their own classrooms. In part, they may do so by adopting a "transcultural" pedagogy or teaching style, according to which both teachers and their minority students develop (at minimum) transcultural proficiencies and (at maximum) transcultural identities, as a promising way to achieve two important ends. First, the fostering of an academically-industrious self-concept in members of historically underachieving minority groups and hence, second, the closing of the achievement gap "from the bottom up"—one classroom at a time.

The papers contained in this issue aim to illuminate this fundamental
maxim of social scientific investigation in the context of the psychology
of rallies, riots, and revolutions. The literatures reviewed and ideas advanced across this edition collectively speak to the importance of a generative social science, where researchers stay on the move between multiple perspectives in an effort to holistically comprehend unfolding socio-political phenomena: what Shweder [1] has dubbed ‘the view from manywheres.’

The formation of queer psychology has been a critical intervention in breaking apart the psychological tendency of reifying categories of gender and sexuality. Nonetheless, latent Orientalism and white-centered epistemologies in psychology have continued to produce culturally essentialist depictions of a repressive "Chinese sexuality" and "backward Asian culture." In this article, I present three main problems in psychological representations of Sinophone queers: (a) "cultural colorblindness" resulting from the conflation of race and culture, (b) the problematic analytical category of "Chineseness," and (c) race and culture being theorized as a burden for Sinophone and Asian queers. In order for psychology and queer studies scholars to destabilize these epistemologically violent interpretations, this article argues that we must engage with Sinophone critique and shift away from a framework of culture to one of "concerns" in order to capture the heterogeneity of queer Sinophone subjectivities.

This thesis reviews the ways in which female masculinity is defined, organized and ignored in dominant discourse.  The objective is to demonstrate that female masculinity can be deemed a valuable category well beyond the borders of the gender binary.  In this research, I pay careful attention to the construction of language around gender identities, and the ways in which female masculine identity has been dislodged from the category of trans identity.  This research will shed light on the liminal spaces and magical places of identity in which masculine women dwell.  The goal of this thesis is to determine and define common threads of resilience found in the lived, embodied experiences of masculine women who participate in the research process.  Drawing on standpoint theory and genderqueer theories, these potential filaments of resilience will be examined through Photovoice methodology.  Research findings will be organized into a visual art exhibition to further engage and encourage a public conversation about female masculinity as a gender.

We explore contemporary evolutionary perspectives on children’s psychological development, questioning the view that high-fidelity, inter-individual transmission of information explains the cumulative character of human cultures, and children’s ontogenesis within these cultures. We argue that humans construct an environmental niche that is unique in being composed of institutions, which function to coordinate activity over multiple time scales. Institutions involve not simply customs or conventions but a deontology of future-binding rights, responsibilities, duties, and obligations. The origins of institutions can be traced in hominin evolution to Paleolithic hunter-gatherers, where kinship, the first institution, made possible community support of an extended and demanding form of ontogenesis. Since the human environmental niche is an institutional reality, children today need to acquire the ability to understand and act effectively within institutions. We propose that this ability emerges not as an adaptation solely to past conditions but through differentiation and reintegration of an ‘extended ontogenetic system’ of which the child is a constituent, leading to a quality of self-consciousness on the part of the child that makes possible the ability to live in an institutional reality.

Great efforts to create an ambience wherein trusted cultural values can be incorporated into the practices of western methods of psychotherapy have been raised in Korea as well as in other Asian countries. Despite the increasing body of research by cultural impacts in psychotherapy, however, little is known about the Korean perspective of indigenous psychotherapy.

Initially a qualitative inquiry into the historical meaning and effects of experience, this article attempts to interpret a way to highlight indigenous psychotherapeutic methods derived from the concept of ‘Pungryu’, the Korean ethos deeply immersed in their spirits, and cultures. Pungryu is a philosophy or lifestyle Koreans have sought i.e., living in accordance to the nature ‘as wind (pung) blows and the flow (ryu) goes’, with significant emphasis on artistic practices and spirits of play.

This article debates on its implication in modern Korean psychotherapy and efficiency of culturally relevant psychotherapy in practice, further appealing to realize the importance of invigorating an ethos intrinsic to each culture or society as an essential knowledge to psychotherapeutic methods attuned to its distinct cultural or societal expectation.

Key Words: Cultural, Indigenous, Ethos, Korean, Psychotherapy

ISTP 2015, Coventry

Symposium Title: More than life, more than psychology: future oriented processes.

Proposant: Luca Tateo, Aalborg University, Denmark, [email protected]

Discussants:
Gordana Jovanovic, Belgrade University, Serbia
Kevin Carriere, Georgetown University, USA

Imagination has been often considered a secondary feature of human mind, subordinated to the process of rational and logical thinking. The study of imagination has traditionally been based on Aristotle’s idea of imagination as a faculty which produces, stores, and recalls the images used in a variety of cognitive activities, including those which motivate and guide action: "The soul never thinks without a mental image [phantasma]” (De Anima). The contribution will draw on the ideas of the philosophers Giambattista Vico and Harald Høffding, who discussed in different times the role of imagination as basic symbolic process. Vico’s theory of the human psyche identifies the distinctive characteristic of mind in its capability of imagination, the main symbolic capability (Tateo, 2015). Imaginative capability is based on three fundamental functions of the mind: fantasia, the capability to imitate and change; ingegno, the capability to create correspondence between things; and memoria, that is the capability to remember. Høffding understood the potential of studying imagination in relation to science. “The freedom in respect of what is given, which scientific imagination presupposes, appears not only in the new combinations, but also in the power of discovering agreements, of finding the same fundamental relations, in the midst of very changed or complicated conditions. Such more deeply penetrating apprehension of similarity lies at the bottom of the association by contiguity at work in the combination; starting from the single recognized or identified characteristic, a whole new connection (according to the law of totality) is constructed” (Høffding, 1904, p. 179). The presentation will try to answer the following questions: Which is the role of imaginative processes in our daily life, in learning, in economic and social activities, in the scientific and artistic work? Does imagination means just a detachment from reality or is it instead a basic psychological function? The proposal is to consider imagination as the general symbolic capability of creating new knowledge and generating concrete new ideas by manipulating signs in analogic form.

What is the role of culture in establishing young people’s pathways into gang membership? Italian criminal organizations (COs) exhibit adherence to codes of honor and masculinity, important values in the context where they originated. Here it is proposed that the embedding of these values at an individual level may lessen young people’s group-based opposition to such organizations, and indirectly, create a space in which such organizations can persist and recruit. In a study of young Southern Italians (N = 176; Mage = 16.17), we found that those who endorsed ideological beliefs related to the honorableness of male violence reported lower intentions to engage in antimafia activities. Consistent with the hypothesized mechanisms, this relationship was mediated by more positive attitudes toward COs, and lower reported vicarious shame in relation to the activities of COs. Directions for future research and implications for research on gangs are discussed.

The children of immigrants are often referred to as second-generation youth. Although there is tremendous diversity among them, they often share the common experience of being bicultural by holding both heritage and mainstream cultural identities. Given that cultures generally promote similar expectations for youth (e.g., showing respect for parents), holding two cultural identities is not necessarily problematic. Even when cultural expectations do differ, these individuals can typically switch between cultural identities (e.g., South Asian at home; mainstream Canadian at school) as a strategy to avoid conflict. For some issues, however, switching between identities will not resolve the conflict because fulfilling the normative expectations associated with one identity is done at the expense of the ones of the other identity (e.g., choosing a romantic partner that is either from the heritage culture or from mainstream culture). The current paper presents a normative approach to understanding the experience of culturally-based conflicts among second-generation youth. In addition, research stemming from this normative approach in the area of intimate relationships is presented to further illustrate the value of the model in understanding the potential cultural conflicts of second-generation youth and how they may be negotiated.

We read with great interest the editorial by Krüger (2020) in which she provides a review of some of the cultural aspects of dissociation and trauma. We especially appreciate her call for the study of the “entire spectrum of dissociation” (p. 1) from normal to pathological. We have been working along similar lines (e.g., Maraldi et al., 2017; Maraldi et al., 2019) and would like to take the opportunity offered by Krüger to explore further the literature on possession experiences, which she mentions only briefly in her paper. Cardeña et al. (2009, p. 173) define possession trance as “a temporary alteration of consciousness, identity, and/or behavior, attributed to possession by a spiritual force or another person”. When involuntary, unwanted and incompatible with cultural or religious norms and practices, such experiences might be classified as pathological. The diagnosis of “possession trance disorder” was first proposed in the DSM-IV (APA, 1994) as a condition for further study, but in the DSM-5 (APA, 2013) pathological experiences of possession were subsumed under the dissociative identity disorder (DID) category. Pathological possession is now thought in terms of a “possession-form presentation” of DID. But the link between DID and possession trance has been contested by researchers from different countries (e.g., Delmonte et al., 2015; Maraldi et al., 2017; Van Duijl et al., 2013). Also, it is still unclear to what extent pathological possession differs from other pathological phenomena, such as possession delusions in psychosis and some of the so-called cultural syndromes (e.g., ataque de nervios, LewisFernández, 1994), which are considered by some authors as instances of dissociative phenomena (Hegeman, 2013; Ross et al., 2018). On the other hand, there are many nonpathological dissociative experiences about which we know very little, including spiritual experiences reported during religious or ritualistic practices (Alvarado, 2005; Queiroz, 2017). The DSM

Ernst E. Boesch (1916-2014) was one of the most important and internationally renowned psychologists of the twentieth century. His analyses apply to diverse experiences of strangeness and complex human needs as articulated in literature, painting, music and religion. Accordingly, the investigation of crises, conflicts and violence also moves into the center of his extensive work. The present book provides a broad overview and detailed analyses of his thoughts and contributions.