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Psychopathology Involved The Possession By Evil Spirits And Demons

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Psychopathology Involved The Possession By Evil Spirits And Demons
Our earliest explanation of what we now refer to as psychopathology involved the possession by evil spirits and demons. Many believed, even as late as the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries that the bizarre behavior associated with mental illness could only be an act of the devil himself. To remedy this, many individuals suffering from mental illness were tortured in an attempt to drive out the demon. Most people know of the witch trials where many women were brutally murdered due to a false belief of possession. When the torturous methods failed to return the person to sanity, they were typically deemed eternally possessed and were
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