(n.) A human being possessed by a demon or evil spirit; one whose faculties are directly controlled by a demon.
(n.) One of a sect of Anabaptists who maintain that the demons or devils will finally be saved.
Example Sentences:
(1) In this paper the psychoanalytic treatment of a case of demoniacal possession is described to indicate the multiple dynamic meanings which possession may have and to demonstrate the necessity for integrating and applying aspects of libido and object relations theories.
(2) He also touches on the social, as opposed to the religious, background in which demoniacal possession flourished (not lacking in the world today), so leading to an examination of the psychodynamic aspects of demoniacal possession and the question of absolute evil.
(3) Fairbairn, and later Guntrip, applied an object relations theory to the case and conceptualized demoniacal possession in terms of bad internalized objects.
(4) A psychoanalytic study of demoniacal possession contributes much to the understanding of such patients but particularly to the conceptualization of borderline and psychotic states.
(5) In Russia, where state-controlled TV portrayed them as demoniacal witches, it divided opinions wildly, though many were appalled at the way they were treated.
(6) Psychodynamic explanations of demoniacal possession have been based mainly on Freud's retrospective interpretation of the illness of Christoph Haitzman.
(7) Ideas and concepts of the essence and nature of mental diseases have always been rooted in the current zeitgeist that usually regarded the psychotic patient as a helpless victim of demoniacal influences, degenerative processes, organic (endogenous) diseases or the dynamics of familial determinants, all of which seemingly destroyed or paralysed the autonomy of the person who became a schizophrenic.
(8) He examines in some detail the nature of supposed demoniacal possession and describes its symptoms and signs.