A CASE OF POSSESSIVE STATE WITH ONSET INFLUENCED BY DOOR-TO-DOOR SALES

Recently in Japan, 'door-to-door sales' has become of concern because it has created numerous legal and social problems. In this paper, a 47 year old dissociative trance disorder case who presented with possess ion by God is discussed. Specific types of door-to-door sales is known to use superstition and folk beliefs as tools to lure customers. In t his particular case, these religious factors seemed to have played an important role in the precipitation of the disorder and its presentati on. In addition, the brain-washing environment observed in video lectu res used in door-to-door sales seemed to play an important role in the development of the possessive state. We also performed social psychia tric analysis of the occurrence of the possessive state in a city area , which has been considered to develop within traditional culture. Phe nomenological classification by one of the authors was useful for diag nosing underlying disorders in the possessive state.