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Psychopathologies and cultural factors:

some neo-evolutionist perspectives

Fabio Petrelli* Roberto Verolini* Larissa Venturi**

*Dipartimento di Scienze Igienistiche e Sanitarie-Ambientali, Università degli Studi di Camerino

**Dipartimento di Istituzioni Politiche e Scienze Sociali, Università degli Studi Roma Tre

        In the recent Neuroscienze ed evoluzionismo per una concezione olistica delle psicopatologie e dei disturbi della personalità[1] we present a detailed analysis of the influent factors that, proceeding from specific cultural “constellations”, could lead up to typical structures of personality and social behavior, driving dynamics of psych conditioning and exerting a weighty influence over the individual knowledge capacity and over all the advanced expressions involving human brain. In that work we follow the direction of search previously suggested in Metamorfosi della Ragione: esegesi evoluzionistico psicosociologica di Genesi 1,3 ed implicazioni bioetiche[2] and in Il Dio laico: caos e libertà[3], where we set a formal division of the sacred dimension in two big classes: “theoethotomies” as social structures based on a marked ethical role of divinity, and “religions”[4] as metaphysical systems infused with a non- moral divinity.
       In our essay we discuss a revision of the space where the environment modelling action and conditioning potentialities became operating. In fact, even though we do not reject the physical and biological foundation of genetic causes of psychic processes, concerning the species Homo s. sapiens[5], new theoretical proposals from neuroscience are upsetting the reference points, by tracing out a new explanatory pattern in which brain development cannot be intended outside the structural contribution of external environment and learning process[6].
       These factors “carve” human brain from an anatomic point of view, by selecting and fixing connections among different groups of neurons. More specifically, according to the evolutionist approach, conscience emerges as essential consequence of cultural environment influence on individual senses, where psychic experiences are modeled. Therefore this new outline of conscience markedly includes that sphere of psychical experience where typical semantic values are expressed: ideas, language, cultural elements transmitted and acknowledged by the group, emotional constituents, spiritual and philosophic perspectives.
       Our distinction between “theoethotomies” and “religions” allows to describe a specific correlation between theological models and psycho-cultural conditioning, and gives us a key of interpretation quickly attested by ethnological empiric data[7]. Since the “Self” is structured as an expression, efficient from the point of view of evolution, of external cultural and biological reality, human brain and nervous system keep a psychic mark of that reality. Lots of psychical dynamics are subordinated to the social expression of typical pools of values which address individual development, just as characters working as the ideal reference mark for the growth itinerary of an individual inside the group.
       As human cultures analysis shows that they are structured around some specific ethical coordinate, the distinction we propose between “theoethotomies” and “religions” gives us a classification of cultures that follows a dichotomous way[8]. We can draw two antithetic psychical dynamics that emerge from a comparison between theoethotomistic and religious models. A first distinction refers to the hypertrophied development of Super Ego, a consequence of the strong ethical and moral individual subjection towards the sphere of the Sacred; in this direction, we advance a first conclusion: where a full individual identification with the ideal of the Self is possible – i. e. in the religious systems –, the conditions of an objective alienation from the ontological perfection that characterizes the theoethotomistic cultures tend to disappear.
       If we consider also other characters, different human cultures can be arranged according three rising levels of aggressiveness, in a diagram re-proposing the well-known classification in classes A,B,C outlined by Fromm in Human Aggressiveness Anatomy[9]. From the three classes analysis, tied to constellations of typical factors, a positive correlation emerges with the appropriate theological model: religious for the class A, theoethotomistic for B, anti-religious for C.
        In this context we set out in a new perspective some important questions emerged in ethno- psychoanalytic and ethno-psychiatric research. We finally provide a new interpretation of the term “psychopathology”, that goes beyond all those expressions representing deviating or marginal elements from a standardized interpretation of a “correct” experience of faith, traditionally considered as “positive” and “orthodox” expression of religiosity. Our interpretation identifies a “sane” religiosity only in determined faith contexts (religious) and looks at the theoethotomistic models as pathologic forms of faith.
 

*This value is not extensively proved.

Tab. 1

In this direction we can survey with appropriateness the existence of particular traits of individual and collective personality, by comparing theoethotomistic and religious cultures in the psychoanalytic and psychiatric description of the so-called “religious” psychopathologies. From the Giacomo Dacquino work entitled Religiosità e Psicanalisi[10] we mediate the definitions of “religious psychopathology” and “sane religiosity” that through a new formulation of “religious immaturity” and in correlation with the new idea of theoethotomies, identifies in this one, pathologic forms of anal, oral and phallic religiosity together with some important manifestations of religious neurosis. Schemes of religiosity known as narcissistic, dependent, masochistic, hypomaniac, also refer to this last one bringing back to the same manifestations all the types of neurotic atheism, conscious and unconscious, as well as the most famous cases of neurotic conversion [11].
       The empiric test is based on data drawn from DSM IV Axis II; here are listed mental disorders more likely led to the characters object of psychopathogenous influence of religious model. The most important are: the schizotypical disorder of personality, the paranoiac and the dependent one.
        In some cases, for example, the disorder is characterized by the great emphasis attached to the militant sense of religious belonging, or by an attitude of passivity and deference in comparison with the sphere of the Holy; other cultures encourage in different way a dependent attitude. These troubles of personality tend to reveal themselves also through an excessive worry about lack of order, a tendency for some form of perfectionism and mental or interpersonal control in spite of flexibility, opening and efficiency. In a cultural system not so far from us, following an interpretative line referred to the studies of Max Weber[12], a special emphasis is attributed to work and productivity, two elements here projected or intended in a sacral dimension; in these cultures these mental schemes and relevant attitudes are obviously not considered pathologic.
       As far as the sense of guilt is concerned (as formal and unequivocal lynch-pin of the integration of the religious sphere in the moral one, according the permeating modality typical of theoethotomistic contexts), we follow the Dacquino’s purpose, where the origin of a conscious or unconscious sense of guilt is connected with the sentiment that in the first years of life allows the individual to form moral categories of the Good and Bad, either through gustative, or motion or acting experiences.
        Individual maturation should occur according to schemes leading to an autonomous and authentic adult phase, where individual can interpret some mature needs of the Super Ego. During the adolescence through the Super Ego is expressed a necessity developed «(…) just from an encounter among the irrational unconscious impulses and the precept imposed by external authority (parents and educators)»[13]; during the full development process of the Super Ego, it becomes representative of «an important dynamic element of individual evolution because, apart from checking the emotional needs (…), it meets the interior ideal of the Self (...). So the Super Ego rules, got part of inner life, take part not only in the individual psychological evolution, but also in his moralization, in his social life»[14].
       A sane maturation, consisting of a mechanism which tends to absorb the Super Ego and its immature needs formed in the early age, represents a psychological and ontological objective that individual cannot realize if placed in a theoethotomistic dimension, where the dogmatic imperatives resulting from the rules set by divinity appear continuously in front of him. Ethical model proposed in these systems fixes the individual Super Ego to an intrusive and irreducible stage, since the Bad is not only a simple primordial metaphysical principle, just as can be found in the myth and in religious folklore typical of the most pre-permanent polytheistic cultures, but it becomes an essential element pervading the individual ethical sphere, broadly present in the daily dimension, source of an everlasting tearing interior conflict, impregnating individual attitudes with sense of unworthiness, inadequacy and frustration compared with an infallible authority.
       On the contrary in a religious context, where there is no place for a sense of guilt since all the repressive activities are not irrevocably crystallized, individual can rely on a precious irreplaceable help for getting an adult condition objectively sane, without immature aspirations but following some stabilizing dynamics of development (see fig. 1).
 

Fig. 1

       In the Genesis, especially according to the psycho-sociological interpretation given in Metamorfosi della Ragione[15], an immediate consequence of the knowledge of the Good and Bad is just the acquisition of a sense of shame, connected with the conscience of nakedness. This makes as clear as ever the relation between metaphysical cultural dimension and some important deep psycho-sexual manifestations, often pathologic, frequent in the human nature.
        Given the special origin of the Ideal of the Ego in a theoethotomistic model, the development of Super Ego and behavioral practice, that are following the necessity to lead the Ego to a continuos mediation between the conflicting needs of Super Ego and Es, are “witness” of socio-cultural conditions and, then, of a psychical reality that can be preceding serious psychopathologies characterized, according to a psycho-analytic language, by fixations and pre-genital regressions.
       Cultures inspired from religious models seem on the contrary able to distinguish development “normal” and “sane” personalities, according to the typical pathologies ascribed to this cultural dimension; they transmit social and cultural expressions that hinder psychopathologic deviations to rise up, and are a premise of an authentically autonomous development of an adult personality.
       Our work proposes an interpretation rich in socio-cultural implications, since during the historical process towards the affirmation of a standing civilization, agricultural practices, social structure according to the hierarchic principle and the state-authority, the definition of an ethical weighty entity has occupied a very special place. According to our thesis here presented, that evolution seems to have heavily marked individuals and groups history, and to have started in western civilization a process towards a progressive stiffening in collective and individual psychological structure.
        We open a revisional perspective, from an evolutionist point of view, for traditional ideas “normality” and “illness”, so a radical re-statement of the idea of mental disease. In this direction hypertrophied Super Ego and edipical dynamics are no more incurable features or factors of psychological nature of human personality; they roughly represent contingent solutions, structured according a particular level of individual development or collective conscience.
       Starting from our hypothesis of a connection between some special shaping and functioning mechanisms of human brain and cultural evolution process – i. e. religious –, we attribute a great importance to the formal distinction between 1) societies where the notion of authority is central – i. e. where a remarkable ethical merit content is typical of the ultramundane dimension – and 2) “primitive” societies, interested by some “natural” religious expressions. We then analyze the correspondence between individual free choice and behavioural model proposed by the culture to which an individual belongs. From this perspective we draw some interesting points of reflection about cases of collective adaptation dynamics, or the psychological “anomaly” as a product of the discordance between natural inclinations and group’s behavioral expectations and about the origin of uneasiness of contemporary individual. It follows a critical opinion on the typical “diseases” of our society and on the border sharing normality and deviation.
       The question in hand suggests a search line involving some new discriminants about a questionable angle of traditional psychopathological analysis, and finds a relational link between the new meaning we attribute to the sacred dimension and the most innovative development in the present-day psychology.

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