Jerusalem Syndrome

Jerusalem syndrome describes a group of religiously themed obsessive ideas, delusions, or other psychosis-like experiences that are triggered or intensified in some visitors specifically by traveling to the city of Jerusalem, sometimes leading the affected person to identify themselves with a figure from religious history or scripture, feel a compulsion to preach or deliver sermons in public places, or perform ritualistic acts, often accompanied by a preoccupation with personal purity and preparation. Israeli psychiatrists, notably Yair Bar-El and colleagues, published an influential systematic study of documented cases around the year 2000, drawing on records from Jerusalem-area psychiatric facilities that had treated affected tourists and pilgrims. Cases have been recorded among visitors of a range of different religious backgrounds and nationalities, not only from one specific faith, and researchers studying the phenomenon distinguish a smaller subset of cases occurring in people with no prior psychiatric history, in whom the episode tends to follow a fairly consistent pattern and generally resolves once the person leaves the city or receives treatment, from a larger group of cases involving people with an existing psychotic or other psychiatric illness whose symptoms simply take on a Jerusalem-specific religious theme during their visit. As with related travel-triggered reactions described elsewhere in this section, Jerusalem syndrome is not a formal diagnosis within major psychiatric classification systems but a descriptive clinical term for a recognized and specifically located pattern of acute religious psychological disturbance.