FAITH HEALING

A STUDY OF PERSONALITY AND FUNCTION

Abstract

This is a study of 43 fundamentalist-pentecostal persons who experienced 71 faith healings. Each person was interviewed following a structured format to assess: a) life pattern prior to faith healing; b) life pattern subsequent to faith healing; c) medical history prior to and subsequent to faith healing; and d) perceived function of faith healing. Personality status was assessed with the Spitzer Mental Status Schedule, a scaled self-report, the MMPI, and Cornell Medical Index. A typical constellation of personality traits was found, including the use of denial, repression, projection, and disregard of reality. Faith healing does not result in alternate symptom formation, nor does it produce significant changes in life style. The primary function of faith healing is not to reduce symptomatology, but to reinforce a magical belief system that is consonant with the subculture of these subjects. Faith healing in contemporary America is part of a continuum of magical belief systems ranging from witchcraft to Christian Science. The psychodynamics are similar in all such systems, the variation is in the abstractness of the magical belief system. Within the framework of the assumptive world view in which faith healing subjects live, their personality structure and magical belief systems are not abnormal, but are part of a coping system that provides ego integration for the individual and social integration for the subculture.