Background: Culturally grounded religious experiences play a crucial role in shaping psychological well-being and psychopathology. Therefore, traditional healing practices rooted in religion remain a major source of mental health care for diverse populations. In both Italy and India, such practices are deeply embedded within local religious and cultural contexts, where mental distress is often understood through supernatural etiologies and addressed with bodily or ritual interventions as therapeutic responses. Examining these practices provides insight into the role of cultural values in healing and supports the development of culturally sensitive approaches to psychological health, grounded in theories suggesting the interaction between cultural and intrapsychic phenomena. This cross-cultural perspective frames mental processes as shared across the community (Devereux, 1973), enabling clinicians to better engage patients from diverse cultural backgrounds in today's interconnected world.
Methods: This study examines the experiences of people in Christian and Hindu religious settings in Italy and India. Participants will be recruited from parishes and religious associations in Italy's Vesuvian area, where ecstatic Christian practices are relatively common, and from attendees of the Mehandipur Balaji Temple in Rajasthan, India. This mixed-method study uses a concurrent triangulation design, collecting qualitative and quantitative data simultaneously, analyzing them separately, and then integrating the findings for validation. Sampling will continue until theoretical saturation is reached. Participants reporting theophanic or ecstatic experiences will complete a sociodemographic schedule and standardized psychometric measures assessing somatic, depressive, and anxiety symptoms (PHQ), dissociation and identity alterations (CADSS), and psychosis risk (ERIraosCL). They will also participate in semi-structured interviews, audio-recorded for thematic analysis of their transcendent experiences.
Results: Expected are both overlaps and clear distinctions between religious ecstatic states and psychopathological conditions in the Italian and Indian samples. These findings will advance a cross-culturally grounded understanding of spiritual emergencies and mental health.