Conceptual and Clinical Implications of a “Haunted People Syndrome”
https://e-space.mmu.ac.uk/628076/8/2021-27007-001aam.pdf
Evidence suggests that subjective and objective anomalies associated with ghostly
episodes form a unidimensional Rasch scale and that these interconnected “signs or
symptoms” arguably describe a syndrome model. This view predicts that symptom
perception—that is, the phenomenology of these anomalous episodes—can be markedly
skewed by an experient’s psychological set. This is impacted, in turn, by psychosocial
variables that affect attentional, perceptual, and interpretational processes. Therefore, we
present an overview that discusses how (a) Belief in the Paranormal, (b) Religious
Ideology, (c) Ideological Practice, (d) Social Desirability, (e) Latency, and (f) Environ-
mental Setting ostensibly influence the contents or interpretations of accounts. These
experiential details are similarly expected to reveal insights into the psychodynamics
being expressed or contextualized via these narratives. Future research in this area should
help to validate and clarify the proposed syndrome model, as well as explore which
nuances in the phenomenology of ghostly episodes reflect idiosyncrasies of experients’
psychological set versus the nature of the core phenomenon itself.
