Curing ourselves sick: Challenging mental states and rites of passage
posted by zinzan | December 29, 2010
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IcerocketI'd like to open up about something that's been concerning me for a while now and it's the narrow view our culture has of mental health.
I'm guessing most of you reading this have experienced some form of head-space that you've found extremely challenging. After dealing with some dark-nights of my own I know how difficult and even terrifying some of these experiences can be, but I also know that I have learned and grown more during these experiences than at any other time in my adult life.
It is mostly for this reason that I am, in general, a supporter of the idea of 'mad pride'. I'm concerned that many people's spiritual journeys are discouraged, cut-short or worse – tragically derailed – by our current approach to mental health.
Many of humanity's longest surviving cultures held some form of psychologically challenging initiation ritual at the heart of their societies. Yet the shaman, a central figure and mediator of these rituals, might by today's standards be considered mentally ill and institutionalized. But by what standards does a culture judge sanity?
Altered states of being seem to have a vital role to play in our personal development into fully mature 'self-actualized' human beings, yet they are feared and suppressed by our society. I think the results of this suppression can be seen in the juvenile behaviour of our culture.
What bothers me most about all this is that I suspect that these altered states, peak experiences, breaks etc are far more common than we collectively let on. We think we're alone so we suffer alone.
This is where I feel the real damage is done. Without a support network these states are made all the more challenging, alienating and negatively stigmatized. Instead of being guided by a supportive cultural paradigm, established to guide the initiate successfully though the experience, individuals are faced with the challenge of integrating these experiences into their enculturated worldview and failing that, seeking help in exactly the wrong place – a healthcare system wholly unequipped to act as shaman.
Having been involved as a volunteer in a mental health environment I can say that I have seen improvement in the attitudes towards psychological differences but the focus remains on medication and suppression and the language surrounding these states is pathologizing. I think its time we start exploring the function that some of these conditions may be trying to serve. These challenging mental states may well be a rite of passage, a rite of passage we our denying ourselves under the current healthcare/pharma regime.
Thoughts?
Comments
Regarding mental health
— Dec 29, 2010
Compulsory mental heath treatment is based upon two conditions. 1) You are a risk to yourself or 2) you are a risk to others. Voluntary assistance must be sought for mental health services otherwise.
Mental illnesses are clearly defined by the DSM.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diagnostic_and_Statistical_Manual_of_Mental...
Mental health ebbs and flows in our lives, for instance many will experience the death of loved one and suffer depression yet not be chronically, clinically depressed. If you are experiencing long term emotional or mental dis-ease you might wish to discus it with a Medical Physician, Clergy or some other "helping" professional.
Several other comments ..........
A diagnose of mental illness is in many instances permanent.
If you seek clinical assistance few are turned away.
Psychiatry is a very new science
Psychiatric treatment consist largely of mind altering drugs with some therapeutic support.
I am not a Doctor or Attorney nor is this information meant to diagnose or treat any symptoms of mental illness. It is simply commonly available information and some personal view points regarding mental illness.
Placebo?
— Dec 30, 2010
Thanks for your comment Harbinger. You're right, these conditions are well defined as pathologies within the context of the DSM and I would say there are times when someone may benefit from the treatments prescribed here.
But, what I'm concerned with is the potentially derailing, victimizing effects of over-pathologizing these conditions so off-hand.
Imagine that you experienced some sort of psychological abnormality – if you are immediately labeled as ill you are likely to accept all the stigma and disempowerment that goes along with that label. You've been told you have a problem, this comes as a severe blow to your courage at a very fragile time, and now you really do have a problem.
What I'd like to see carefully explored is a more holistic and spiritually-minded approach to these state of being, supporting their potential for growth and discovery – to honestly ask ourselves if these conditions might be trying to serve a useful purpose.
To take the example of 'schizophrenia', many individuals report a spiritual component to the their experiences – visions of gods and demons. I feel that to dismiss these experiences as mere biological malfunction is dangerously ignorant.
I respect the good intentions of the mental health community, and would cite a few reasons to be optimistic but at the moment I feel that the whole thing is somewhat a case of the blind leading the blind... or worse.
Spiritual Emergency
— Dec 29, 2010
I am currently reading Spiritual Emergency by Rick Strassman. It is an important book related to what you speak of here in your blog. Are you familiar with it? There are several therapists that can help people who find themselves within a spiritual crisis. Kevin Sach's is among them (http://www.facebook.com/econoshamanic) and then there's Neil Marshall Goldsmith who is a qualified psychotherapist who understands this sort of thing. (http://www.facebook.com/neal.goldsmith)
Find you soul...it's the one thing only you can do.
I think you have hit on a
— Dec 30, 2010
I think you have hit on a resonant point with this. I am currently reading(and taking notes) Carl Jung's 'Man And His Symbols' for the second time. Jung and his associates address the significance of dreams and their symbology in relation to the spiritual growth and awareness of human beings. They discuss ritual and initiation as important aspects of development of human potential and healing of psychological conditions. I think a lot of the dependance of psychiatric care upon prescription of drugs is a misguided effort to treat the ego while ignoring the unconcious and consequently the self as a whole. the past year has been a particularly trying time for me. I have been dealing with my own darkness and finding my own light but this is not easy. If I did not already have a strong sense of my spirituality and comprehension of basic psychology(not to mention the ability to reach out to others for support) I do not think I would have fared so well. I still struggle with being at odds to the modern paradigm and feel this puts me at a disadvantage for reintegrating myself. I feel largely marginalised and am in the processs of determining what direction my path is to go. My dreams may be the best guide I have to navigate this uncertainty.
"Be who you are. Say what you feel. Because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind." -Dr. Seuss
I have a lot of thoughts on
— Dec 30, 2010
I have a lot of thoughts on this topic.
First let me say that my mom has suffered from agoraphobia since she was 12 years old and that my brother has suffered from social phobia since he was 8. My dad has a masters in psychology/social work. So all of my immediate family is closely connected to the mental health field.
Both my mom and my brother think that because of some of the ways my thinking has dramatically changed from psychedelic use that I am crazy, my dad however does not. Point being that on the surface without training people would probably think shamans were crazy, but perhaps people with an education in psychology might not.
Another thing I can draw from my family experience is that of my mom and my brother. When my brother had his first anxiety attack in class in the first grade he wet himself and ran out of the classroom only to be forced into coming back to class and sit through it. This is a case of not treating someone with a anxiety disorder any different than anyone else. Is that right? My mom has been on anxiety meds from many many years, while she is addicted to these and it isn't a good thing, she would have been able to take us to Disneyland without them, gone to europe without them, gone out to eat for a couple hours, and many other things. She barely leaves the house even with them.
I am incredibly interested in schitzofrenia, but what about when it is a catatonic case? This means that the person gets so withdrawn into a world of their own that they completely stop interacting with the world outside them. What if this person was riding a bike? Or driving a car? With medication to prevent this catatonic attacks they can ride a bike or drive a car. In Sacramento where I live health care has been cut by up to 80 percent. This leads to an incredibly to large amount of people that need help not getting it, and being homeless walking the streets.
My dad used to volunteer every Friday to drive around the streets of Sacramento with police officers and talk to all of the mentally challenged homeless people to build case files and a history of their conditions and the medications that they needed, the program has been cut however because we are too short on police officers. Was this a bad program, giving "bad" meds to these homeless people that couldn't function without them?
I am in no way saying that there aren't ever cases of doctors misdiagnosing or misperscribing, even over prescribing meds, but i do think that mostly mental health care is helping. If anything the biggest problem with it is that it is the first thing to be cut by the government and we don't pay enough attention as a society to these people and helping them.
These are just some of my thoughts an this topic, which is very complicated and there isnt an easy answer.
Invisible Agent
"No one really knows exactly what happens when we think, therefor we can never really ever know anything." -Michael Larson
People with Catatonia is not merely withdrawn
— Dec 31, 2010
in the conventional sense. It like Schizophrenia is a "very" serious disease.
.........................................................................
Catatonic patients will sometimes hold rigid poses for hours and will ignore any external stimuli. Patients with catatonic excitement can suffer from exhaustion if not treated. Patients may also show stereotyped, repetitive movements. They may show specific types of movement such as waxy flexibility, in which they maintain positions after being placed in them by someone else, or gegenhalten (lit. "counterhold"), in which they resist movement in proportion to the force applied by the examiner. They may repeat meaningless phrases or speak only to repeat what the examiner says.
While catatonia is only identified as a symptom of schizophrenia in present psychiatric classifications, it is increasingly recognized as a syndrome with many faces.
source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catatonic_schizophrenia
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wVPSKSTjXiw&feature=related
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Contact with a competent, licensed, Medical professional should be made concerning mental illness. I am not a Doctor.
check out
— Dec 31, 2010
check out http://theicarusproject.net if you haven't yet, it's a radical mental health peer support space (online forums, local groups, publications, links, etc)
Both and
— Dec 31, 2010
POP, you have obviously tapped into something here. St. John of the Cross described the "night of sense" and the "dark night of the soul" as important, perhaps essential, stages on the path of spiritual growth. Anesthetizing people who are having a spiritual crisis probably does more harm than good.
I am struck by some of the black and white thinking in the comments to this post. To put it bluntly, no one on this forum has met every psychiatrist or psychologist in the world. Like plumbers and dentists, some are good people who do good work and others are charlatans who ruin people's lives. Most are probably somewhere in between. People who think psychiatrists can do no wrong are blind. But people who think all psychiatrists are all scum are no less blind. No matter what your experience has been, you are looking at the world through a soda straw.
That said, if you have been harmed by the psychological profession, you have my compassion. I hope that you find healing in some other avenue.
mental health
— Dec 31, 2010
I believe everyone has got some of this right. People close to me have mental health problems. I feel they are beyond the shamans help and medication is the only thing that keeps them relatively stable. I also worked with troubled teens and gave out a long list of meds throughout their day. There is alot of side effects with meds and they often just stop working so new ones are tried all the time. There isn't enough personal care within the industry, the paitent is on a conveyor belt of a failed health care and insurance system for the most part.
Mental health issues have greatly increased as of late. I believe for alot of reasons. A dysfunctional society, a deteriorating environment. Lost and wandering souls attaching themselves to people. The shifting energy matrix of the planet, and yes we have very little in the way of initiation, ritual and mentoring etc.
The shaman for the most part use to work within a saner atmosphere and supportive community to embrace individuals outside the box. There was real care, and a better chance of healing and ways of integral inclusion in their structured society.
What we need is a new paradigm in health care, and we are seeing the emergence of integrative medicine, Holistic and Science based working hand in hand. I like to think it is the way of the future. Consciousness again. When we awaken, evolve... better care all around.
Think about this...
— Jan 17, 2011
Paul Levy in his RS articles explains that the "crazy" person is putting himself in a role, an initiation, a trance-formational experience, and so is the mental health professional, the doctor. The patient is coming across experiences that do not mesh with normal society and reality, and, their ego wants to be cared for and given medications and told that they're ok, or fixed from some aberration, but the deeper Self that is emerging knows that the only way forward is to stand up and let the unconscious, paradoxical, "crazy" world arise and be heard.
In my experience, the only way forward is to gain the self confidence that your (psychedelic) experiences are valid and real and meaningful, and not chemical imbalances or aberrations, but the awakening of the divine within.
I feel communities like this help to assure people that these experiences on the edge of reality are important, that there's vast historical precedent for them, and that other people are going through the same thing. You're not alone. You are healing yourself and the world, through the roles and initiations you put yourself into. They are meant to awaken you to your true nature. Linear society may not understand, but deep down you know that the world is quite nonlinear and paradoxical at its core. You are on the vanguard of a new world!
The Shaman
— Jan 20, 2011
"In primitives, development of personality, or more accurately, development of the person, is a question of magical prestige. The figure of the medicine-man or chief leads the way" (Jung, Two Essays on Analytical Psychology, 1966).
I find it very interesting that I found this post because I am currently studying Jungian Psychology in a Master of Arts graduate program. We are currently reading Two Essays on Analytical Psychology and I pulled the above mentioned quote because as an Anthropologist and Psychologist I find it strange that only the "shaman" or "medicine man" are considered by Jung as having a developed personality. More importantly, it seems as though these rites of passage play a very important part in being able to carry the psyche from one stage of life into another. They seem to serve as a sort of symbolical recipient that holds the energy of the libido and re-directs it into the development of personality.
Anyways, thanks for your blog, it got me thinking because I have a paper due on the second week of February and I plan on writing about neurosis, the Shaman, art and ritual as a way of re-directing the energy of the unconscious.
