Jerusalem Syndrome

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Man with Jerusalem Syndrome

The Jerusalem Syndrome refers to a mental disorder , annually about 100 visitors to the city of Jerusalem are affected. This is not a recognized diagnosis. The symptoms fall under "Acute and temporary psychotic disorders " in the international diagnosis code .

features

The illness has the character of a psychosis and manifests itself, among other things, in religious delusions : The person concerned identifies himself or herself e.g. B. in some cases with a holy person from the Old or New Testament and poses as that person .

Well-known biblical figures are particularly often the object of such an identification, for example Moses and King David from the Old Testament or Paul and John the Baptist from the New Testament. Basically, men “choose” male biblical characters and women female ones. Jews often choose characters from the Old Testament, Christians those from the New Testament.

The identification as a biblical person goes hand in hand with a corresponding self-presentation and is often accompanied by public sermons or prayers by the sick person. They also often wrap themselves in wide robes or sheets, i. H. in clothing of the time.

Name and course

The Jerusalem psychiatrist Heinz Herman was the first to diagnose the phenomenon in the 1930s, at that time under the name Jerusalem fever .

The name Jerusalem Syndrome probably comes from the Israeli doctor Yair Bar El, who diagnosed this disease in the early 1980s and has since treated over 400 people in the Kfar Shaul psychiatric clinic . Basically, the disease is not dangerous and those affected are usually completely recovered after a few days. The great majority of the sick people already showed psychological abnormalities before the Jerusalem Syndrome.

The arson attack on the Al-Aqsa mosque by the Australian tourist Denis Michael Rohan in 1969 was attributed to the Jerusalem Syndrome because of his religious motivation.

reception

The Israeli author Yehoshua Sobol wrote a play of the same name in 1988.

In the Simpsons episode Simpson and Gomorrah ( Season 21 ; OT : The Greatest Story Ever D'ohed ) Homer Simpson and other people are affected by the syndrome.

In the ARD film Das Jerusalem Syndrom (first broadcast December 11, 2013), the sister of the main character is affected.

See also

literature

  • Y. Bar-el, R. Durst, G. Katz, J. Zislin, Z. Strauss, H. Y. Knobler: Jerusalem syndrome. In: British Journal of Psychiatry. 176, 2000, pp. 86-90. (Full text)
  • M. Kalian, E. Witztum: Comments on Jerusalem syndrome. In: British Journal of Psychiatry. 176, 2000, p. 492. (full text)
  • M. Kalian, E. Witztum: "The Jerusalem Syndrome" —fantasy and reality a survey of accounts from the 19th century to the end of the second millennium. In: Isr. J. Psychiatry Relat Sci. 1999, 36 (4), pp. 260-271. PMID 10687302
  • N. Fastovsky, A. Teitelbaum, J. Zislin, G. Katz, R. Durst: Jerusalem syndrome or paranoid schizophrenia? In: Psychiatric Services. 2000, 51 (11), p. 1454. (full text)
  • C. Tannock, T. Turner: Psychiatric tourism is overloading London beds. In: BMJ (Clinical research ed.). Volume 311, number 7008, September 1995, p. 806, PMID 7580448 , PMC 2550781 (free full text).
  • A. Van der Haven: The holy fool still speaks. The Jerusalem Syndrome as a religious subculture. In: T. Mayer, S. A. Mourad (Ed.): Jerusalem. Idea and Reality. Routledge, 2008, pp. 103-122.

Web links

Commons : Jerusalem Syndrome  - Collection of Pictures, Videos and Audio Files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ The Jerusalem Syndrome in Biblical Archeology
  2. ↑ Simpson and Gomorrah. simpsonspedia.net, June 3, 2017, accessed September 19, 2017 .
  3. ↑ The Jerusalem Syndrome. ( Memento from December 11, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Description of the film on the ARD website