Ritual, Body, and Psychisme: Anthropological and Clinical Perspectives

Abstract

Rituals—repetitive, symbolic, and embodied practices—are central to human life across cultures, mediating transitions, sustaining social order, and expressing shared meanings. This review examines how ritual engages the body and psychisme, understood here as the dynamic interplay of psychological life and embodied experience. Drawing on anthropological, cognitive, and clinical research, we argue that ritual offers a lens for understanding how cultural meaning is inscribed in bodily practice and how clinical ritualization may influence mental health. Anthropological studies show that rituals shape identity, memory, and social coherence through embodied performance that transcends lexical language and enters somatic registers. Cognitive and psychological frameworks highlight how ritual’s patterned actions regulate emotions and establish a sense of control and belonging. Clinically, ritualized practices—whether traditional healing rites or therapeutic protocols—can serve as integrative interventions supporting emotional regulation and attachment repair. By bridging cultural and clinical perspectives, this review highlights the multifaceted role of ritual in shaping body and psyche and calls for integrative frameworks that honor both cultural specificity and universal processes of psychosomatic integration.