Different Approaches

Currently, I’m looking for some new answers in my view about mental illness. It’s not just a current thing but rather a topic that keeps coming up again and again. This search is especially nourished by the psychotic experiences that I first had at the age of 21.

At the core is a pathological, in contrast to a shamanistic or spiritual point of view on mental crises. The pathological viewpoint judges a mental illness, as it’s already said, as an illness, something adverse and limiting without the possibility of growth. A shamanistic oriented person has a deeply different viewpoint. Because in this way of thinking is the “birth of a healer” at the center, something that is full of chances. And because I reckon, there’s always a great demand for healers, such experiences are, in fact, necessary. Some people think, a so-called “spiritual emergency” apparently happens when the “spiritual world” is working on the person concerned. I have another idea of spirituality. I think it’s a matter of getting into deep touch with oneself, humanity and nature. Simply all that is. I would call that a rather shifting and challenging experience. Maybe emotions aren’t numb anymore, as they were before and the Worldview might alter fast. Looked at it this way, people with mental health disturbances need indeed a different approach than currently is practiced in mental hospitals. I guess it’s true that spiritual aspects of a crisis are in some wards already more considered than they used to be. However, I’d like to point out here that a “spiritual emergency” is not necessarily a psychosis, but a psychosis often includes this aspect. The research on Schizophrenia is far from being finished. It seems clear that in triggering a psychosis, different and multi-faceted factors are co-responsible.

If you like to inform yourself more profoundly, I recommend this interesting link:

The Differentiation of Psychosis and Spiritual Emergency

Personally, I take medication. This treatment is taking place in combination with psychotherapy. Also, there’s little stress in my life, this makes it currently possible for me to live without psychotic symptoms. I’d like to state that often finding the right medication, and the establishment of a good relationship with a psychiatrist is not easy.

It’s important to me that one considers and involves not only the pathological aspect but also spiritual concepts. Psychoses are from my point of view a kind of coping processes of the psyche. Spirituality, in the end, may mean something different to each one of us. I think that the amount of personal work that is happening on a so-called “Recovery-Journey” from mental illness is indeed a form of a spiritual process. Many questions remain open.

In this way, there’s space for shamanistic practice and other methods.

Have a nice day!