The belief in the transmigration of souls: psychotherapy of a Druze patient with severe anxiety reaction.

In this paper the culture-sensitive psychotherapy of a 19-year-old Druze patient with severe anxiety reaction is described. The patient explained his anxiety and his symptoms as stemming from violent death in his former life and subsequent transmigration. The therapists joined the patient's explanatory model and previous traditional healing, adding hypnotic suggestion which relieved the symptoms. The relationship of patient symptomatology to cultural background, multiple personality disorder, possession and dissociation is discussed. The strategic combination of culture-specific and modern psychiatric approaches is advocated in similar cases.