Faith Healers, Mental Health And Misbelief
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After finishing her household chores, 36-year-old Haleema Begum walks out to a field near her home in north Kashmir and begins rubbing mud on her face and arms. Despite having cleaned the house and done the laundry, she believes the only way to truly feel clean is by scrubbing fistfuls of earth on her skin. Her family initially blamed her unusual ritual on possession by a djinn and turned to faith healers for help. It was only after her behaviour escalated and she began soiling freshly washed clothes with mud that her husband sought formal medical advice.
“We went to hundreds of peers (faith healers), but there was no improvement in her condition. Many people told me that she was possessed by a djinn, but her condition only deteriorated, so we had no alternative but to consult the doctors,” said Haleema’s husband, Altaf Ahmad Shah, 39, an insurance agent. Altaf flipped through pictures on his phone, taken in a field near their house, showing his wife’s face and hands covered with mud. “After she had finished her household chores, she would go into the field and smear herself with mud,” he said with moist eyes.
Altaf used to travel for hours from North Kashmir to Srinagar in search of faith healers, before finally turning to a psychiatrist. These days, he often skips work to accompany his wife for treatment, making the four-hour journey to the city. A counsellor attended to her diagnosed her for a obsessive-compulsive disorder, marked by compulsive behaviours. Altaf says the medication has brought some improvement.
The family of Mehfooz Bashir, a skull cap-wearing tenth-class student, also turned to a faith healer, believing the boy had caught the evil eye. Mehfooz’s father, Bashir Ahmad, thought his son became unwell after he delivered a sermon at a mosque near their home in central Kashmir. He first went to a local cleric, then to faith healers who offered prayers for recovery. But the boy continued to show signs of depression and stayed withdrawn. It was only after Bashir had wasted several thousand rupees on these visits that he decided to consult a psychiatrist in Srinagar. Doctors later confirmed Mehfooz was dealing with clinical depression, not spiritual possession and treatment is now ongoing.
“My son gave a sermon in the mosque and fell ill only after that. It was nothing but the evil eye. His condition didn’t improve even after we went to many faith healers, which is why I have now come for a consultation with the psychiatrist. Doctors have told us that he is suffering from depression,” he said.
Traditionally, Kashmiris regularly turn to faith healers to seek cures for mental health disorders, often at the peril of the patients involved. According to local doctors, they have received several cases of patients who faced traumatic experiences after their families took them to faith healers in the hope that they would be cured.
A psychiatrist said that a patient under his treatment had received injuries to his fingers after a faith healer tried to wrench them with a pincer. The patient, he said, was suffering from ‘possession syndrome.’
Several healthcare professionals working on mental health issues said there is a “culture-bound syndrome” prevalent in Kashmir that views mental illness through the lens of people being possessed by djinns. There have been more severe cases of bodily harm in the past. In May 2022, police arrested a faith healer after he beat a woman to death in South Kashmir’s Shopian. Her family had gone to him seeking a cure for what they believed was possession by “evil spirits.”
Content retrieved from: https://www.outlookindia.com/national/faith-healers-mental-health-and-misbelief.
