This fits well here...

Please note that individuals undergoing chemically induced psychosis experience much of the same content as "schizophrenics" and for this reason, their experiences can serve as a helpful guide as to the inner realities of the "psychotic" individual.

This entry is not and should not be interpreted as a suggestion to explore altered states of consciouness via the use of hallucinogens. As noted in a separate entry, meditation, drumming, and chanting can be far safer means of exploring transpersonal states of consciousness for those who are so inclined.

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What Psychosis Is Like

Psychosis, caused by a chemical imbalance in the brain due to mental illness or drug ingestion, is much like undergoing an inner death. Some experts literally call it ego death, an inner catastrophe of enormous dimensions. Researchers of persons experiencing hallucinations due to drug use describe psychotic reactions to LSD, such as:<blockquote>“an abysmal sense of physical destruction, emotional catastrophe, intellectual defeat, cultural/moral failure, and absolute damnation of transcendental proportions.” Subjects face agony and develop a conviction that they will explode and the entire world will be destroyed . . . in this situation it is extremely important that the sitters (individual guides) repeatedly emphasize the safety of this experience” (Grof, 158)

The experience of ego death is “the destruction of everything the subject is, possesses, or is attached to.” There is an “expectation of a catastrophe of enormous dimensions,” horrific panic, a fear of disintegration or, more violently, implosion. The patient feels the fate of the entire world depends on their ability to “hold on” (or conversely, to commit suicide).</blockquote>Researchers say the psychotic person is hyper-aware, constantly thinking, deluded in contemplating the processes of respiration [breathing], digestion [eating], procreation [sex], elimination [urination, defecation], etc. Quite distressing are psychoses in the latter category, labeled ‘scatological.’<blockquote>Major symptoms of psychosis are hallucinations (sensing things that most others do not), ideas of reference, delusions of persecution, delusions of grandeur, etc. Experiences of death, rebirth, religious, spiritual and messianic delusions (special identification with Christ and/or the Anti-Christ) are common. One feels an annihilation of Biblical proportions is imminent. Elements of destruction (self-, world-, universe, etc.), re-creation of the world, salvation and redemption all are common psychotic phenomena.</blockquote>Researcher Grof says psychosis is caused by “the release of highly-emotionally charged traumatic unconscious material . . . the unusual nature and power of the material that emerges from the depths of the unconscious causes the person to explode, having an episode of dramatic and often chaotic release of pent-up energies . . . The psychotic activity has been chemically externalized.”

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Cues for Navigating the Waters

There are ways to assist in positive psychedelic experiences, time-tested methods of providing guidance to persons undergoing a psychedelic experience.

In taking LSD, the greatest importance is on set and setting. The ‘subjects’ of research studies were given individual instruction and helpful techniques as they went through their psychedelic experience. “Sitters” gave individual attention to those undergoing this LSD experience. These trained professionals were responsible for the creation of a simple, safe and supportive physical environment (a/k/a set and setting). They are called on to “establish trust, freedom from anxiety, an ability to remain centered, deep empathy, and an intimate knowledge of the dynamics of psychedelic states.” (Grof. 316) They may offer comforting psychical contact.

[*] When providing care to those undergoing the psychotic experience, emphasize safety and care. Researcher Grof asserts that facing one’s [or another’s] madness, destructive and aggressive energy SHOULD NOT BE treated as a pharmacological state to aggressively confront and resolve” (Grof, p. 313)<blockquote>Mental health centers have an always had such an inhibiting effect. Time on the psychiatric ward represents serious social stigma - which is immediately internalized in order for survival. Any psychiatric facility has an atmosphere of danger and urgency, so psychotic experiences in this environment in particular can cause a lifetime of trauma for patients and staff alike. Caregivers appear as the enemy. Anyone on a psychedelic and/or psychotic trip, Grof says, “may physically fight with the sitters (in this case, hospital staff, family, or friends), seeing them as the oppressive element. They may “be driven to violent, self-destructive actions, mistaking them for the liberating ego death.”

Hospital treatment is usually swift and strong [restraints, injections of tranquilizers (contraindicated when the use of psychedelics is suspected), seclusion]. These “drastic measures often reflect the helpers’ own feelings of threat and insecurity in relation to their own unconscious . . . Exposure to another person’s deep emotional materials tends to shatter psychological defenses . . . The prevailing tendency to put all such experience into the category of schizophrenia and to suppress them in every way reflects not only a lack of understanding, but also a convenient self-defense against the helper’s own unconscious materials” (Grof, p. 314) Caretakers must reflect a psychotic’s experience as therapeutic opportunities, not clinical problems (and still take care of their own needs).</blockquote>
[*] People in psychosis have deep feelings of doom, without hope of escape, feeling one is crazy, in hell, and it will last forever. It is important to integrate, emphasize and clarify the distinction between psychological time and clock time. Try to connect the patient’s intellectual knowledge with the actual experience.

[*] Use non-verbals. Consensual reality aside, your body may intuit what another is going through. Follow good instincts.

[*] Emphasize that the person experiencing psychosis is not facing real biological death. One can feel the conceptual frameworks break down. Cultural and cognitive barriers dissolve. One must surrender, accept, and go through it. The psychotic material can be seen and synthesized in a totally new way that was not possible within the old systems of thinking (Grof, p. 270).<blockquote>“LSD can mediate access to vast repositories of concrete and valid information in the collective unconscious and make them available to the experient.” (Grof, p.267) So, similarly, persons undergoing psychotic experiences are synthesizing and integrating data in new ways, “resulting in unconventional problem solving.”</blockquote>[*] Respect the person undergoing this experience. If psychosis was treated akin to a rite of passage, in caring, empathic ways, we might emerge less destroyed from the waters scientists study and quantify.

[*] If you’re in psychosis (again), trust. Helpers in this effort, be they friends, family, shamanic initiators, guides -- each offers their help for individual recovery of the essential self.

[*] Hold the beliefs that relief and recovery are possible. There is a place in recovery for non-conventional modes of healing. Patients, families, friends, helping professionals, and policy makers must realize the helpfulness and utility of these old studies, despite psychiatry’s reliance on neurochemical theories. “Today, most psychiatrists assume that mental illness almost always has a biological or genetic basis rather than a social or psychological or even spiritual origin” (Pinchbeck, p. 178). We must invite a psychiatry that includes spiritual or mystical experiences without pathologizing them. The challenge is in expanding the biological model. It won’t be easy.<blockquote>“The psychiatric community argues endlessly over verbal definitions within the general framework of insanity. The framework itself is rarely challenged. It should be! Like personality definitions, insanity labels unjustly evoke self-fulfilling prophecies . . . Psychiatric diagnoses, unlike diagnoses in other medical specialities, define, and in so doing, create, pathological conditions. The diagnosis or definition becomes part of the illness and creates a series of self-fulfilling prophecies . Once an institutionalized diagnosis is made, a reality is invented in which even normal behavior appears disturbed. After the diagnosis, perceptions that reinforce the diagnosis are manufactured. The process quickly moves beyond the control of patients, diagnosing physicians, family, staff and hospital administrations. All participate in the construction of a reality that supports the diagnosis.”

The Age of Manipulation - Wilson Brian Key</blockquote>Despite the horrors of hallucinations and psychotic activity, Grof says they can be opportunities for therapeutic change. Researchers emphasize there IS something better on the other side. “Talent . . . its expression was blocked by strong pathological emotions” (Grof, p. 266) Successful psychedelic therapy allowed for full “affective liberation.” That means freedom of mood. Further, one develops deep insight and empathetic understanding. We must learn to accept, work through and integrate these experiences. As the Chinese icon for crisis is devised of the separate icons for opportunity and danger, we survivors of psychotic experience must dare to give an answer to the questions “What was going through your head? What happened to you?”

Source: Getting Through Psychosis

See also: [*] Guidelines for Making it Through a Spiritual Emergency[*] Tips for 'Dark Night' Journeyers[*] How to Treat Difficult Psychedelic Experiences[*] Death &amp; Rebirth in Psychospiritual Transformation[*] Assistance in Spiritual Emergency[*] Guidelines for Family and Friends