
As a psychiatrist, I diagnose mental illness and help spot demonic possession - schneidmaster
https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2016/07/01/as-a-psychiatrist-i-diagnose-mental-illness-and-sometimes-demonic-possession/
======
jrapdx3
Well good luck getting insurance to pay for that "diagnosis". Hard enough when
submitting claims for conditions that _are_ in the diagnostic manuals. It's
also risky from a regulatory standpoint. I know one doctor who was pursuing
"occult" phenomena that a couple of his patients told him about. Someone
complained and he was in trouble with his licensing board for a time for his
"unprofessional conduct".

However there is a deeper issue implicit in the subject, regardless of its
actual scientific merit. It provokes a question about what makes it necessary
to try explaining things that have no explanation.

That's a common and universal human trait. With very few exceptions, humans
insist on "explaining" things no matter what, ordinarily people won't tolerate
indeterminacy. It's a rare person who accepts "I don't know". But of course
not knowing _is_ reality, look at anything close enough and it looks fuzzy.
Examined at sufficient level of detail, everything is ambiguous.

When patients present with unusual (to the interviewer) ideas, perceptions or
feelings, quite likely it will defy classification geared toward frequent,
typical events. In that instance the response to "what is going on with me?"
should be "I don't know" when one doesn't know. Resorting to "explanatory"
mythologies, including psychoanalytic theory, or occultism, only obscures
reality. Far better to skip "explaining" given the impossibility of avoiding
unavoidable uncertainty.

We can and should say what we observe of phenomena and their related
similarities and differences. That set of observations is the valuable basis
of what we know and can act on. There are limits to knowledge, particularly
that asking "why?" does not terminate. It takes courage to face that the only
answer we'll ever get is that there is no answer.

~~~
chmike
I couldn't have said it as well. I would add that referring to it as demonic
posession is using one possible interpretation among others of the reported
facts to identify the phenomenon. This might exacerbate skepticism.

------
ythl
I'm a religious person, but I don't think "demonic possession" has any place
in any type of mental illness classification. Proving the existence of God is
impossible. Proving the existence of demons and/or evil spirits is tantamount
to proving the existence of God. Is it possible that this Doctor has witnessed
demonic possession? Yes. But more likely, the person just has severe mental
problems. There is no evidence of it other than anecdotal evidence, and it is
unscientific to just throw your arms up and say "dang, that's hard to explain,
must be an evil spirit".

~~~
benkuykendall
I agree diagnosing demonic possession would be unscientific.

However, the role and attitude of the author seems ultimately helpful to his
patients. If he can screen the suffers of diagnosable and treatable mental
illnesses from the hard to explain cases, he can get proper treatment for the
former group. By not denying the existence of demonic possession, he remains
in the good graces of religious leaders, who are likely to bring him patients
who otherwise would receive no psychiatric evaluation.

However, leaving the later group in the hands of exorcists is questionably
moral. But if honestly, as he claims, there are cases where "the symptoms in
question have no conceivable medical cause" then I guess there is little else
he can do.

Of course, writing a click-bait article about diagnosing demonic possession is
unprofessional of both Gallagher and the Washington Post.

~~~
freditup
Why do you think it's unprofessional for the Washington Post to publish this
article? I personally don't see anything particularly wrong with it so I'm
curious as to what you find unprofessional about it.

~~~
benkuykendall
Is "PostEverything" their op-ed section? I guess in that case it's not too
egregious. But for a news article, it seems much too quick to accept the
occult without giving any specific evidence.

> As I see it, the evidence for possession is like the evidence for George
> Washington’s crossing of the Delaware. In both cases, written historical
> accounts with numerous sound witnesses testify to their accuracy.

~~~
freditup
Thanks for the elaboration on your thinking - as far as I can tell,
PostEverything is sort of an "anything-goes" op-ed section [0]. I fully agree
that this would be a horrible "news" piece!

[0]:
[https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2014/05/27/...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2014/05/27/welcome-
to-posteverything)

------
jalami
I could understand "checking under the bed" to calm the patient's nerves from
a purely consequentialist standpoint, but legitimately saying "I don't know,
could be demons" is A: saying nothing at all as it could be anything currently
unexplainable and B: lending too much credence to a specific unverifiable
"cause". As others have said, demons of the gaps. It's not an intelligent
position and not particularly interesting.

I wish we could all just get to a point where we answer "I don't know" with
"We'll find out" instead of "<Popular mythology>!"

------
hliyan
As for speaking in tongues, glossolalia is a well documented (non-
supernatural) phenomenon:
[http://skepdic.com/glossol.html](http://skepdic.com/glossol.html), usually
associated with mental illness.

As for the hidden knowledge claims, the author should have consulted James
Randi, who during his career, always managed to boil such fantastic claims
down to sometimes ingenious and sometimes hilariously simple techniques used
by the "practitioner". AFAIK, he never lost his $1 million bet.

~~~
knodi123
> AFAIK, he never lost his $1 million bet.

That is correct, he never lost- however, "These demons, being fallen angels,
are sentient and are hardly likely to allow themselves to be recorded. That's
how they sow so much confusion and doubt."

This is identical to the invisible dragon in my garage.
[http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/The_Dragon_in_My_Garage](http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/The_Dragon_in_My_Garage)

~~~
ryao
That sounds harder than recording the Equation Group in the act of developing
malware without their consent. So far, the most that I have seen is videos of
weird things than videos of the things doing them, like this one:

[http://www.dailymail.co.uk/video/news/video-1243908/Spooky-m...](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/video/news/video-1243908/Spooky-
moment-desk-chair-flies-office-night.html)

That said, all videos could be fake, so it does not matter if we actually got
one of something real. Who would believe it aside from the guy who took the
video?

------
relyks
This article seems like click bait. There are no references to any case
studies or patients. Also, despite psychiatry being grounded in the objective,
there is still a subjective level of interpretation in the results.
"Misunderstanding Psychiatry (and Philosophy) at the Highest Level"
([http://www.psychiatrictimes.com/articles/misunderstanding-
ps...](http://www.psychiatrictimes.com/articles/misunderstanding-ps...)) is a
good article about this. I'm very skeptical of this article. Has any of his
patients been reviewed by other reputable psychiatrists? To actually verify
his claims, experiments with statistical data would need to be completed, and
the results would need to be peer-reviewed.

------
abpavel
"Correctly guessed that my mother died of cancer"... Knew when someone had
"unjust pride"... Well, take WHO statistics, and use most probable case. Do it
in the group, and as you tell people stuff, monitor others for face
expressions or ques, because cases will repeat amongst audience. Learn to say
a couple of latin sentences. The art of scamming is profound. Demonic
posession is not.

------
Uptrenda
Does this guy speak fluent Latin? How does he know what "perfect Latin" sounds
like when its an esoteric, dead language?

~~~
superuser2
The academic Latin community does have a standard for correct pronounciation,
it's just not necessarily the same as what it would have been historically.

------
salgernon
To misquote another noted psychiatrist: "sometimes a goth is just a goth"

The public interest in "possession" seems to be rising linearly with the
practitioners of exorcism. This doctor seems to condemn exorcists of different
faiths though - the horrific re-birth deaths that are a throwback to "if she
dies, then she wasn't a witch, so it's ok because her soul is good" \- without
producing any evidence that non-catholic exorcism has a greater success rate.

As an aside, there's is a whole slew of similar click bait medical articles on
WaPo, which seems really out of character for an established news source...

------
rdtsc
Related somewhat to this, religious fanaticism, misdiagnosis of mental
illness, and what can come out of it, I recommend this movie:

Beyond The Hills --
[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2258281/](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2258281/)

It is inspired by a real life story of a young nun who ended up crucified and
killed due to "excorcism" performed on her:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanacu_exorcism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanacu_exorcism)

------
BrandoElFollito
I am always surprised at how much the daemons avoid cameras, physicists and
others hard-rooted skeptics (the ones who will not go bonkers when there is a
show going on). This is a very good strategy.

~~~
titanomachy
Let's assume that demons exist, capable of taking over human minds, and that
they also have superhuman perceptive and reasoning abilities. With sufficient
abilities, they could reliably avoid detection if they wanted to... but why
would they? Why is it so important to them that they not fall under scientific
scrutiny?

------
krapp
He admits he hasn't witnessed a levitation himself ...

    
    
        (I have not witnessed a levitation myself, but half a dozen people
        I work with vow that they’ve seen it in the course of 
        their exorcisms.) 
    

... yet he presents the _fact_ of levitation as "evidence" further on, because
he simply accepts the word of people who say they've seen these supernatural
events.

    
    
        As a man of reason, I’ve had to rationalize the seemingly irrational. 
        Questions about how a scientifically trained physician can believe 
        “such outdated and unscientific nonsense,” as I’ve been asked, 
        have a simple answer. I honestly weigh the evidence.
    
        I have been told simplistically that levitation defies the 
        laws of gravity, and, well, of course it does! We are not dealing 
        here with purely material reality, but with the spiritual realm.
    

He honestly weighs evidence he's never seen? "Levitation," along with the
other parlor tricks the doctor describes, have been the mainstay of psychics,
con-artists and magicians for centuries. Everything he describes is a trick
that people can go to Las Vegas and pay to see, and everything else is
speculation.

Physician, heal thyself.

~~~
NotSammyHagar
He sounds reasonable enough at the start. Then I start to worry when he gets
to what you mention ("others i trust said it, so it must be true"), but he
completely looses any credibility when he refers to the "demons are too smart
to be recorded". That's just laughable. And sad. Now someone will have to
waste their time debunking this guy.

It would be the most incredible discovery ever if there was proof of spirits
outside our world or life after death. But sadly, all attempts to this point
have not turned out to be reputable.

~~~
krapp
It does seem unfortunate that a _psychiatrist_ of all people would fall prey
to the sort of self-delusion that he should recognize in conspiracy theorists
and cult members.

Even more that he lends his word as a scientist and man of principle to a
practice that has done incalculable harm to the mentally ill for centuries.

~~~
outlace
Well he admits to being a catholic, so his worldview is already well-aligned
with possible demonic possession. People see what they expect to see. People
believe what they want to believe.

------
DanBC
Terrifying that he has some power to detain people against their will; or to
force people to take medication against their will.

> I’m a man of science and a lover of history; after studying the classics at
> Princeton, I trained in psychiatry at Yale and in psychoanalysis at
> Columbia.

Physicists at CERN talk about the lengths they go to to prevent cognitive
bias. It'd be great of other people stopped thinking "I'm a person of science,
thus less open to these biases than other people."

> That background is why a Catholic priest had asked my professional opinion,
> which I offered pro bono, about whether this woman was suffering from a
> mental disorder.

Why is he talking about someone's medical status to other people? In England
he's committed an offence.

> So I was inclined to skepticism. But my subject’s behavior exceeded what I
> could explain with my training.

> This was not psychosis;

This bit is fine. "I'm a doctor who specialises in mental illness. This
doesn't match any mental illness I've seen before, and isn't in my diagnostic
manual".

> it was what I can only describe as paranormal ability. I concluded that she
> was possessed.

This bit? FFS.

~~~
wtbob
> Terrifying that he has some power to detain people against their will; or to
> force people to take medication against their will.

Why's it any more terrifying that a religious dualist person has that power
than an atheist materialist? Atheist psychiatrists in the Soviet Union were
responsible for quite a few involuntary committals of folks whose 'madness'
was wanting freedom.

> Why is he talking about someone's medical status to other people? In England
> he's committed an offence.

A cleric cannot consult with a psychiatrist in England?

> > This was not psychosis;

> This bit is fine. "I'm a doctor who specialises in mental illness. This
> doesn't match any mental illness I've seen before, and isn't in my
> diagnostic manual".

> > it was what I can only describe as paranormal ability. I concluded that
> she was possessed.

> This bit? FFS.

'There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in
your philosophy.' He definitely needs to make sure that he takes appropriate
precautions against cold readers (who are quite talented at winkling out
details without one realising). As he notes, ' I technically do not make my
own "diagnosis" of possession but inform the clergy that the symptoms in
question have no conceivable medical cause.'

~~~
DanBC
> A cleric cannot consult with a psychiatrist in England?

About themselves; about generalities; but most certainly not about a third
person. Are you saying that US doctors share medical details of people with
their clerics?

~~~
wtbob
With names removed, I don't see why a cleric can't share non-confessional
details with a psychiatrist, nor vice versa. Are you seriously saying that in
the U.K. one can't discuss cases with names removed? How does the Lancet stay
in business then?

~~~
DanBC
OP isn't removing the names.

~~~
wtbob
> OP isn't removing the names.

'Much later, she permitted me to tell her story.' It's the last sentence in
the second paragraph.

And, as a matter of fact, I don't see any names of either psychological or
spiritual patients in that article, although perhaps I've missed one.

~~~
DanBC
That's permission for him to write about it. It's pretty clear from the
article that he's offering opinions on these people to the religious groups
who make the referrals.

> In the late 1980s, I was introduced to a self-styled Satanic high priestess.

[...]

> That background is why a Catholic priest had asked my professional opinion,
> which I offered pro bono, about whether this woman was suffering from a
> mental disorder.

> For the past two-and-a-half decades and over several hundred consultations,
> I’ve helped clergy from multiple denominations and faiths to filter episodes
> of mental illness — which represent the overwhelming majority of cases —
> from, literally, the devil’s work.

He sees 200 people over 25 years. He sees those people because clergy refer
people to him. He gives information back to those clergy - "this person has
mental illness", or "this person is possessed".

Is he providing treatment to them? If so he's abusing their privacy. Is he
merely researching them? Let's see the ethics committee approval that allows a
researcher to label people as demonically possessed.

(Note here he leaves no room for "not possessed and not ill".)

~~~
wtbob
Presumably if these people are referred to him by their clerics then they have
agreed to have his report sent back to those same clerics.

Priests, lawyers, physicians, surgeons & psychiatrists are all members of a
professional class, who presumably may refer their clients to one another &
may consult with one another as appropriate.

------
mankash666
I've witnessed particularly strange bugs in code that's outside my diagnostic
abilities and training. My Catholic priest also finds the code to be violently
unmanageable at times.

After reading this article, I'm contemplating authoring a book on demonic
code. Because, if I can't fix it, I could at least get rich writing.

PS: This message is approved by the deamon possessing the code.

------
dacompton
I'm not religious now, but grew up in an extremely religious (southern
baptist) household. When I was young, my mother, family, and friends told me
stories of demons and demonic possession -- and I was terrified. I sometimes
prayed myself to sleep. As I grew older (into my teens), this fear was
replaced with an unencouraged, autonomic disinterest in Christianity.

In short, my experiences have taught me that some people are not wired for
religion. Perhaps some of those disinterested folk find it more advantageous
to say "possessed by demons" than "not otherwise specified."

------
PhasmaFelis
I am willing to at least consider the possibility that non-physical beings
might exist, and that they might be both able and willing to influence a
human's actions in ways that appear malevolent.

Going from that to asserting that said beings are literal demons sent by Satan
to corrupt mankind seems like a stretch, and makes me question this guy's
objectivity (even) more than I might otherwise. Even assuming all his accounts
are literally true, the existence of people with paranormal abilities and
psychotic symptoms shows only that paranormal abilities exist and may be
correlated with psychosis.

If nothing else, the stereotypical "possessed" behavior is _exactly the
opposite_ of what you'd expect a literal hell-demon to do. If the Devil was
real and wanted to tear down God and religion, he'd make the possessed act
like reasonable, well-spoken atheists, not this mumbo-jumbo routine that seems
calculated to scare people into going to church.

~~~
wtbob
> If nothing else, the stereotypical "possessed" behavior is exactly the
> opposite of what you'd expect a literal hell-demon to do. If the Devil was
> real and wanted to tear down God and religion, he'd make the possessed act
> like reasonable, well-spoken atheists, not this mumbo-jumbo routine that
> seems calculated to scare people into going to church.

What makes you think that Sam Harris & Richard Dawkins _aren 't_ possessed?
Maybe the symptoms of possession are really symptoms of a trapped soul trying
to break free of its gaoler: in the case of folks like Harris & Dawkins, they
don't _want_ to break free, while in the case of some poor sap he does.

I don't know that it's actually the case, but it's _an_ explanation. Another,
of course, is that folks who want attention seek it out in the language they
are familiar with: demonic possession for Christians, running amok for Malays,
school shootings for suburban American teenagers.

~~~
PhasmaFelis
> _What makes you think that Sam Harris & Richard Dawkins aren't possessed?_

I cannot disprove the possibility, but I also can't see any plausible evidence
for it, so by Occam's razor it seems unlikely.

I agree that it does make a good Just So Story, if one is seeking ways to
explain the observable world in terms of Catholic theology.

------
chmike
Has this hacker news post been flagged ? I can't see it on the first pages
anymore.

------
cmarciniak
A finer charlatan the world has never known.

------
outlace
My prior probability of the existence of demonic possession is very close to
0, so until I see better evidence than a few dubious anecdotes (that always
have explanations for why we can't capture supposed paranormal activity on
camera), my posterior probability will remain very close to zero.

~~~
ryao
Catching something extraordinary on camera has never been proof. In the past,
people could claim dark room effects. In the present, people can claim
photoshop. It is silly to ask that such things be caught on camera when real
images would be indistinguishable from fake images. You need to see such
things firsthand like that psychiatrist claims to have and if you do, almost
no one in this age will believe you. It would something like this, except
without any fun before the last pane:

[https://xkcd.com/693/](https://xkcd.com/693/)

That psychiatrist ought to know that feeling. Here is to hoping that none of
us ever do.

~~~
reddytowns
It would stand to reason, then, out of the thousands of badly faked
photographs and videos, the mysterious blobs that could be caused by
malfunctioning cameras, and the out of focus, blurry, easy mistakable everday
objects declared as "ghosts" there would be a few clear, in focus photos or
videos, which couldn't be easily placed in the aforementioned categories.

[https://xkcd.com/1235/](https://xkcd.com/1235/)

Mods: wtf

------
Indolat
The world has gone bonkers. This guy should have his doctor's license revoked,
to avoid cases like this:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anneliese_Michel](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anneliese_Michel)

And any engineer talking about possibility of "demonic posession" seriously
must have his diploma cancelled as well.

~~~
chmike
This is a very irrational and stupid stand point. This psychiatrist may have
studied and described a new type of mental illness. Why would you want to
censor such study and prevent this scientist to do any psychiatrist work ?

For what reason ? Because the phenomenon is referred to as demonic posession
and you don't BELIEVE in that ? First there is no way to prove that demonic
posession doesn't exist, so your judgment is based on a pure belief. Second we
must make a clear separation between the facts and their interpretation. Your
reaction is obviously motivated by the reject of the interpretation. There are
a priori many other possible interpretations of the facts. No one could have
tested the validity of the interpretation because the existence and properties
of demons is still UNKNOWN and this means there is no way we can test if
anything could be a daemon manifestation or is not a daemon manifestation.

What you request is censoring and by that you prone obscurantism. That is
anti-scientific and it would be a regression.

In face of such report or data, the only valid attitude should be to first
verify as much as possible the reality of facts. we should leave on the side
the interpretation of the facts in this step to avoid falling in a
confirmation bias.

My feeling is that referring to these facts as demonic posession was a
strategic mistake of the author. But that, in itself, can't justify to ban
this person of any psychiatric activity.

To conclude I would say that scientific rationality and objectivity is
apparently is a poor state.

~~~
Indolat
We have an extensive scientific picture of the world we live in, and it's
verified and validated by a huge number of experiments. This picture doesn't
have any place for anything supernatural. You can't fit demons into physics
and biology, as you can't fit a bull into a china shop. If you want to think
that demons can exist, you have to abandon science. You can't sit on two
chairs.

It's not about censorship, it's about ability to pass a simplest reality
check. I don't want to have any doctors or engineers around me who don't pass
this check.

~~~
chmike
This is a totally wrong perception of the universe we live in. The reality is
that our knowledge of the universe is limited by the horizon of our
perception.

In the years 1400 the existence of the american continents was not yet known
because it simply was beyond the horizon of our planet exploration. These are
huge continents with humans living on it that we ignored they existed but they
existed. Today we know that dark matter
[[https://home.cern/about/physics/dark-
matter](https://home.cern/about/physics/dark-matter)] exist and that visible
matter that is the only matter we studied until now accounts for only 5% of
matter of the universe (current estimate). We currently don't know the nature
and properties of dark matter. All we know is that it interacts with the
gravitational force on visible matter and that is how we discovered its
exitence. So, in theory, there is plenty of room in this unknown space that
COULD support the existence of ghosts, spirits or whatever else.

We do have an extensive scientific model of the world in which we live, but it
is still limited. What strikes me is that so few people seam aware of the
horizon of our perception. I suspect it is due to our educative program that
focus on transmitting things we know to students and forget to learn about the
limit of our knowledge. This gives the false impression to young students that
we nearly know everything and that there are only a few small black spots
left.

~~~
Indolat
> In the years 1400

"My hobby: extrapolating."

We aren't living in 1400 anymore. Show me the facts - and I'll believe you.
And if all your argumentation is based on mental gymnastics only, then you
don't have a place in science or technology.

~~~
chmike
My reference to the american continents is what in science is called a
demonstration by analogy. What about dark matter ? Is that mental gymnastic ?
This is pure rational and objective logic.

Prove me wrong on anything and I will be glad to reconsider my actual
understanding of things. My goal is getting closer to the truth without making
errors. Rejecting hypothesis whose validity is UNKNOWN is taking a risk of
making an error. And this is what I don't want.

~~~
Indolat
> This is pure rational and objective logic.

You know nothing about rationality, objectivity and logic.

And the fact that you're trying to silence me by downvoting doesn't make your
"arguments" look better at all. So much for your argument against
"censorship".

> Prove me wrong on anything

[http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_luwcg4ArMF1r6yihbo1_500.jp...](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_luwcg4ArMF1r6yihbo1_500.jpg)

~~~
chmike
I didn't downvote you. I think your comments respect the standard of Hacker
News. They offer me the opportunity to express and justify my current
understanding. I shouldn't have qualified your comment as stupid. My bad.

------
benkuykendall
The full title (for me at least) reads "As a psychiatrist, I diagnose mental
illness. Also, I help spot demonic possession."

The HN title reads "As a psychiatrist, I diagnose mental illness. And
sometimes, demonic possession." This suggests (via linguistic ellipsis) that
the psychiatrist diagnoses demonic possession. However, he explicitly does
not.

> I technically do not make my own “diagnosis” of possession but inform the
> clergy that the symptoms in question have no conceivable medical cause.

This is an interesting distinction. Of course it would be ridiculous,
backwards, and unscientific for a medical professional to 'diagnose' someone
with demonic possession. But to admit that the symptoms are outside the scope
of modern psychiatry seems a more reasonable reaction.

~~~
dang
We changed the title to reflect the article. (It's possible that WaPo itself
changed it.) Still a bit baity, but with a topic like that...

~~~
schneidmaster
FWIW, WaPo itself also changed it. My original title was the original WaPo
title (check the URL) and then they changed it, and then y'all changed the HN
side to something a little different :)

~~~
dang
I had a hunch that was the case, which is why I added the parenthetical bit.
It's a weakness of the title-submitting rules here that when the OP changes
their title it leaves the law-abiding HN submitter high and dry. Sorry!

