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S40 A. Heinz et al. / European Psychiatry 27 (2012) / supplement n°2 / S32-S43
the oldest brother of the spouse possesses the highest authority.
Children thus have to get along with potential confl icts between
the loyalty to their father and to the brother of their mother, just
as wives have to bridge the potential gap between the interests
of their husbands and their relatives on their mother’s side [43].
These confl icts are refl ected in the Ashanti concept of a person.
According to the traditional concept, a person consists of “Okra”,
the soul and the seed of vitality, which is understood (in a way
that resembles Aristoteles’concepts) as the functional principle
of a person. Among the Ashanti, “Okra” is understood in a non
dualistic way as composed of both material and spiritual parts.
It is given to a human being by the highest god in the moment
of birth, and as a soul or principal of life, it can be reincarnated
in different bodies. “Sunsum”, on the other hand, is the spiritual
aspect of a person, which is received from the father. As an active
principle, “Sunsum” is associated with personality traits and the
moral behaviour and character of a person. “Sunsum” can leave
the body during sleep and can be damaged by (black) magic.
“Ntoro” is sometimes used synonymous with “sunsum” and
directly refers the origin of the personal character, the semen of
the father, which is the source of individual desires and hence
potentially “anti- social”, while “Mogya”, the blood, is derived
from the mother and controls social conformity to the family
and clan with which the blood is shared. After a person’s death,
“Mogya” turns into a spirit that retains the physical form of the
person. This latter idea illustrates that “Mogya” – like all other
Ashanti concepts – includes spiritual and material aspects and
that the dualism commonly known in the Western tradition
cannot usefully be applied to these West African concepts [43].
In Jamaica, traditional believes also hold that clan cohesion
is guaranteed by the common “blood” shared in the kinship [56].
This similarity of concepts could be more than a coincidence,
since it is assumed that about half of all African slaves abducted
to Jamaica were Ashanti. This may be due to the fact that West
Africans reacted quite differently when forced into slavery,
depending – among other factors – on whether they grew up
in regions with strong collectivistic traits or in slave holding
societies. The Ashanti kingdom was such a slave holding society,
which was formed during centuries of hunting for and trading
of slaves. Subjected to regular slave hunts, African societies
were thus transformed into states that themselves specialised
in slave trade, particularly when located in coasty areas [41].
West Africans coming from inland regions with predominant
village structures and rather strong ties to their neighbours often
starved themselves to death on board of the slave ships or even
committed suicide. The Ashanti, on the other hand, were well
acquainted with slavery and therefore often employed as supervisors
of plantations in the Caribbeans. However, riots were so
often started by Ashanti that most Western European states did
not allow any further import of Ashanti into their colonies; only
the British Empire continued to abduct Ashanti and ship them
to Jamaica, an island conquered in the 17th century from Spain.
Here, African slaves that escaped to the mountains (“Maroons”)
founded free villages and fought two wars against British colonial
authorities, thus achieving a limited degree of self- rule [41,4].
Would this mean that we should distinguish between 1) West
African concepts of a person, which are developed within a
village community and constitute a “collective ego” on the one
hand, and 2) an “individual ego” on the other hand, which arises
in Westernized slaveholding societies? The answer is no, because
concepts such as the “collective ego” and the “individual ego”
are rather crude simplifi cations, which do not give adequate
consideration to culturally complex differences in the respective
concepts of a person.
For example, the Tallensi, a population living in Northern
Ghana, developed a concept of the person, that differs strongly
from the concept established among the Ashanti in Southern
Ghana, even though both populations live in the same state [43].
The Tallensi assume that all living beings are composed of a body
and the breath. Human beings also process a soul (“Sii”), which
differs from the breath. This soul can leave the body during sleep
(a concept also found among the Ashanti) and appear in the
dream of another person. The Tallensi also assume that there is a
self (“Meng”), which is closely linked with the soul. However, the
status of a “full person” is only acquired in a livelong, stepwise
process, which is associated with the (increasing) social status
of the individual: only a male person, who represents a social
authority (an elder) in a social group and who has male children,
possesses the full status of a “person”. After death, such a person
becomes an ancestor, who is religiously venerated and who can
interfere with the fate of living human beings. Whenever a child
is born, the group of ancestors who protects the child will also
control its future fate. Ancestors thus become protectors of tradition.
In this concept, the focus of attention is directed towards
the collective ancestry of the population, however, the individual
status of any human being is determined by his own children
and the individual social status he acquired. Therefore, the
anthropologist Morris repeatedly cautions against reductionist
and simplifying concepts such as the idea that an individualistic
tradition in Europe can be juxtaposed to a collectivist tradition
in Africa – instead, Morris emphasises that each culture balances
mechanisms and concepts, which mediate between individuals
and society and their respective desires and demands [43].
Proofs
10. The self in neuroscience
Recently, the construction of the self has also been studied in
neuroscience. Similar to some contemporary philosophers, such
as Thomas Metzinger [42], neuroscientifi c approaches to the
self assume that the self is not an entity outside or independent
of the brain, but rather an entity that is realized in the brain.
The assumption is that the self is a model created by the brain.
According to this assumption, how is the brain creating the
self? Most neuroscientifi c theories refrain from the idea that
“the self” is processed in a particular brain area which would
serve as a homunculus- like observer of processes going on in
other parts of the brain. Such a model would, again, raise the
problem of the infi nite regress: which brain region is “observing”
the observer- region? Instead, most theories favour the
idea that “the self” as a complex phenomenon is emerging from
the interplay between several brain areas, which function as a
kind of self- network; each brain area might subserve a specifi c
aspect of self- related information processing and the interaction
between these neuronal networks thus constitutes our experience
of a phenomenological self. According to a model proposed
by Northoff and Bermpohl [45], self- referential processing in
cortical midline structures is a fundamental component in