Dracula and the Afterlife: A Psychological Explanation

Until relatively recently, the primary psychological approach to understanding Bram Stoker’s Dracula and the folklore of vampires has been psychoanalysis. Maurice Richardson asserted in 1956 that Dracula must be seen from a Freudian standpoint, since “from no other does the story really make any sense” (427). However, the psychoanalytic approach shares little with modern, scientifically based psychology. Fascinating though it may be, psychoanalytic theory has almost no measurable attributes and may itself be as mythical as vampires and an afterlife. Rather, psychoanalysis is a creative theory of human cognition and behavior that can be neither proven false, objectively replicated, nor used to predict novel, testable insights. As Clive Leatherdale, having presented such a reading of Dracula, concedes, “psychoanalysis has been to some extent dismissed as a literary fad whose time has come and gone” (190 n1). This paper presents an alternative psychological theory that explains how vampirism has captured the imagination of so many people in so many cultures. This theory is called Existential Projection to an Afterlife (EPA) and it incorporates a number of well-studied psychological factors: Object constancy, generalization, fear and conditioning. Some background is needed to see how EPA theory provides a psychological mechanism for humans to reduce existential terror when contemplating death, i.e., nonexistence of the self and nothingness. Fear is reduced by the comforting illusion of an afterlife. Leatherdale states that “The concept of the vampire is founded upon two precepts: the belief in life after death, and the magical power of blood” (13). This paper will address both precepts, but with the major focus on the psychology of belief in life after death. Neither belief in vampires nor belief in an afterlife has any basis in objectively observed fact, yet belief in an afterlife is essentially universal in human society and belief in vampires is well established in the folklore of many cultures. The former is related to a deep need to perpetuate the self when the body dies, the latter to a method of doing so. The notion of an afterlife is linked to concepts of religion, God, good and evil, and while not all are related directly to EPA theory, this paper will touch upon those links

Anxiety and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder in the Context of Human Brain Evolution:A Role for Theory in DSM-V?

The “hypervigilance, escape, struggle, tonic immobility”\ud evolutionarily hardwired acute peritraumatic response\ud sequence is important for clinicians to understand. Our\ud commentary supplements the useful article on human\ud tonic immobility (TI) by Marx, Forsyth, Gallup, Fusé and Lexington (2008). A hallmark sign of TI is peritraumatic\ud tachycardia, which others have documented as a\ud major risk factor for subsequent posttraumatic stress\ud disorder (PTSD). TI is evolutionarily highly conserved\ud (uniform across species) and underscores the need for\ud DSM-V planners to consider the inclusion of evolution\ud theory in the reconceptualization of anxiety and PTSD.\ud We discuss the relevance of evolution theory to the\ud DSM-V reconceptualization of acute dissociativeconversion\ud symptoms and of epidemic sociogenic disorder(epidemic “hysteria”). Both are especially in need of attention in light of the increasing threat of terrorism\ud against civilians. We provide other pertinent examples.\ud Finally, evolution theory is not ideology driven (and\ud makes testable predictions regarding etiology in “both\ud directions”). For instance, it predicted the unexpected\ud finding that some disorders conceptualized in DSM-IV-TR as innate phobias are conditioned responses and thus better conceptualized as mild forms of PTSD. Evolution\ud theory may offer a conceptual framework in\ud DSM-V both for treatment and for research on psychopathology.\u

Validity and reliability of the Structured Clinical Interview for the Trauma and Loss Spectrum (SCI-TALS)

Background. DSM-IV identifies three stress response disorders (acute stress Disorder (ASD), post-traumatic stress Disorder (PTSD) and adjustment disorders (AD)) that derive from specific life events. An additional condition of complicated grief (CG), well described in the literature, is triggered by bereavement. This paper reports on the reliability and validity of the Structured Clinical Interview for Trauma and Loss Spectrum (SCI-TALS) developed to assess the spectrum of stress response. The instrument is based on a spectrum model that emphasizes soft signs, low-grade symptoms, subthreshold syndromes, as well as temperamental and personality traits comprising clinical and subsyndromal manifestations. Methods. Study participants, enrolled at 6 Italian Departments of Psychiatry located at six sites, included consecutive patients with PTSD, 44 with CG and a comparative group of 48 unselected controls. Results. We showed good reliability and validity of the SCI-TALS. Domain scores were significantly higher in participants with PTSD or CG compared to controls. There were high correlations between specific SCI-TALS domains and corresponding scores on established measures of similar constructs. Participants endorsing grief and loss events reported similar scores on all instruments, except those with CG who scored significantly higher on the domain of grief reactions. Conclusion. These findings provide strong support for the internal consistency, the discriminant validity and the reliability of the SCI-TALS. These results also support the existence of a specific grief-related condition and the proposal that different forms of stress response have similar manifestations

Human Papillomaviruses Activate the ATM DNA Damage Pathway for Viral Genome Amplification upon Differentiation

Human papillomaviruses (HPV) are the causative agents of cervical cancers. The infectious HPV life cycle is closely linked to the differentiation state of the host epithelia, with viral genome amplification, late gene expression and virion production restricted to suprabasal cells. The E6 and E7 proteins provide an environment conducive to DNA synthesis upon differentiation, but little is known concerning the mechanisms that regulate productive viral genome amplification. Using keratinocytes that stably maintain HPV-31 episomes, and chemical inhibitors, we demonstrate that viral proteins activate the ATM DNA damage response in differentiating cells, as indicated by phosphorylation of CHK2, BRCA1 and NBS1. This activation is necessary for viral genome amplification, as well as for formation of viral replication foci. In contrast, inhibition of ATM kinase activity in undifferentiated keratinocytes had no effect on the stable maintenance of viral genomes. Previous studies have shown that HPVs induce low levels of caspase 3/7 activation upon differentiation and that this is important for cleavage of the E1 replication protein and genome amplification. Our studies demonstrate that caspase cleavage is induced upon differentiation of HPV positive cells through the action of the DNA damage protein kinase CHK2, which may be activated as a result of E7 binding to the ATM kinase. These findings identify a major regulatory mechanism responsible for productive HPV replication in differentiating cells. Our results have potential implications for the development of anti-viral therapies to treat HPV infections

Validity and reliability of the Structured Clinical Interview for the Trauma and Loss Spectrum (SCI-TALS)

doi:10.1186/1745-0179-4