Abstract

Two groups of healthcare professionals, 56 nursing staff (who are part of the official medical system) and 49 paranormal healers (who are part of the complementary medical system) are compared with a control group of 73 Ss for their defence strategies and overall score. It is hypothesized that: 1) the paranormal healer group score significantly lower than the norm for the Dutch population; 2) that the overall score is significantly lower for the paranormal healer group when compared with the control group, and 3) when compared with the nurses group. Defence strategies are operationalized by using the Life Style Index. The results show that nursing staff and paranormal healers differ significantly in defence strategies such as "denial", "displacement", "compensation", and "regression". Further, there are also significant differences with the control group. Differences in defence strategies between groups most probably originate from the position of the profession: within! or outside the official medical system.