Else Marie Elmholdt Jegindø will be defending her dissertation:

Pain and Coping the Religious Mind.

The defence will take place on September 14th 2012 at 1:15 pm at Aarhus University, Department of Culture and Society, Tåsingegade 3, building 1441, Auditorium 2, room 112.

Assessment Commitee:

• Associate Professor Jeppe Sinding Jensen (chairman), Department of Culture and Society, Aarhus University, Denmark
• Assistant Professor Christine Legare, The University of Texas, Austin, USA
• Dr.med. Ulrike Bingel, Universitätsklinikum Hamburg-Eppendorf, Germany

Supervisor:

• Professor Armin W. Geertz, Department of Culture and Society, Aarhus University, Denmark.

Co-supervisors:

• Professor Andreas Roepstorff, Center of Functionally Integrative Neuroscience (CFIN) and Department of Culture and Society, Aarhus University
• Professor Troels Staehelin Jensen, Department of Clinical Medicine, Danish Pain Research Center, Aarhus University.

The defence will be conducted in English by associate Professor Lene Kühle.

Following the defence there will be a reception in the foyer at Tåsingegade

Thesis abstract:

The aim of the current thesis is to investigate a possible pain modulation from religious beliefs and practises and to quantify potential psychological and physiological mechanisms that might mediate the experience. The studies in this thesis are the first to explore the possible analgesic effect of prayer in an experimental setting and to use standardized psychological testing in the wild to study pain during a religious ritual. The project thus integrates methods from standardized psychological testing, clinical psychophysiology, advanced neuroimaging, neuropharmacology, and classic ethnography. From a non-ideological and naturalistic perspective, the thesis presents empirical investigations of pain modulation due to prayer in the laboratory and during the Thaipoosam ritual in Mauritius. The introduction serves as a guide to the three papers where the results of the four studies in this thesis are presented and interpreted in terms of evidence from cognitive pain modulation research. Moreover, the thesis assesses past research on pain modulation due to religious beliefs and practices and discusses relevant methodological perspectives.

A copy of the dissertation will be available for perusal prior to the defence at the Department of Culture and Society, Aarhus University, Jens Chr. Skous Vej 3, building 1451, room 319, DK-8000 Aarhus C.