<B>Saddam Hussein </B>may be out of power and on the run, but he?s still haunting the patients of Harith Hassan. The avuncular, 52-year-old psychiatrist says Saddam?s promises of return in taped messages on Arab satellite channels have added to Iraqis? depression over their country?s precarious security situation ? sending more and more to seek help.

?The percentage of people suffering from psychological disorders is increasing day after day,? said Hassan, who regularly appears on state television. ?I got up to 15 patients a day even during the holy month of Ramadan and it would be 30 a day if I left my doors wide open,? he said in his office, an oasis of calm softly filled with classical music.

Though the US-led war ended Saddam?s dictatorship in April, it brought in its wake more crime and an increasingly vicious battle between insurgents and the US occupying army. The British-based charity Medact said this month that Iraqis would suffer physical and mental illnesses for years because of poor living conditions, violence and a collapsed health service.

Now there are the occasional messages from Saddam, like the one carried by al Arabiya in mid-November promising Iraqis he?d be back to rule them soon. ?People used to hate Saddam Hussein and his regime but didn?t talk about it,? said Hassan, one of 65 psychiatrists in Iraq. ?Now they still have nightmares about him. They have come to the conclusion that Saddam Hussein is really a madman.?

<B>Peasants more wired </B>

Hassan says most of his patients travel from distant rural areas, proving they are more receptive to psychiatric help than urbane city dwellers. ?They may be illiterate and uneducated, but they are more tuned in from a psychiatric point of view than educated people,? said Hassan, who also teaches at Baghdad University.

?It?s very strange. People will travel up to 10 hours from places like Samawa and Meisan ? in the south and will stay in hotels overnight if they don?t find me,? he said. Hassan?s explanation is that these people from the rural and more uneducated sectors of society will already have tried more traditional forms of treatment which have mass appeal, like the use of the Koran to exorcise the jinn, or evil spirits.

?Ninety-five per cent of my patients went first to a sheikh who did some ceremony to try and remove the jinn. When that fails, they come to me,? he said, adding that the number of sheikhs offering exorcism services was on the rise.

Religious sentiment has increased in predominantly Muslim Iraq, which was ruled for three decades by the staunchly secularist Baath Party, since UN sanctions wreaked havoc on living standards in the 1990s when the country was an international pariah.

?It?s all sorcery and nonsense, though I wouldn?t reject the value of using the Koran to make people feel happy and peaceful,? Hassan said. Most Islamic scholars say evil spirits exist ? the jinn are mentioned in the Koran ? but that they do not loiter in the world of human beings. Yet the belief in spirit possession is widespread throughout the Arab world.

<B>Authoritarian rule </B>

It is not just Saddam and the security situation. Hassan says Iraqis are afflicted with ?frustration, depression and aggression? after decades of stifling authoritarian rule. ?Do you ever see people smiling on the streets? Never! It?s because of the frustration, depression and aggression all Iraqis had during the last 45 years,? Hassan said.

?If you don?t deal with depression it turns into aggression, like religious fanaticism, quarrels and looting ? all of which have characterised the post-Saddam era?. Hassan says the 1958 revolution, which saw the demise of a Western-backed monarchy, shares part of the blame for creating a culture of violence in Iraq.

?It was not only Saddam Hussein?s regime but the 1958 revolution. It was very violent and it was at that time that people started to learn strange new meanings for ?democracy? and ?freedom?,? Hassan said.

?I remember how they (the new regime) brought the leg of Nuri al-Said to our school. We were expected to drag it around or spit on it,? he added, referring to the leading pro-British politician of the pre-1958 period. ?I was disgusted.?

Hassan said he feared the tragic cycle of dysfunctional rule would continue. ?The characteristic in Iraq is for these things to repeat themselves. I came to the clinic the other day and found soldiers blocking a bridge because a member of the Governing Council was to pass. Saddam Hussein used to do that,? he said.

?It?s not just the problem of who rules Iraq, it?s how can we build a new self-esteem for Iraqis and fulfil their needs. We are trying to build a decent society.?

Andrew Hammond