Spiritual Emergency & Schizophrenia.

My personal view is that 'schizophrenia/psychosis' covers a very wide range of areas, across the physiological/biologic, psychological/emotional, social/environmental & spiritual/transpersonal.

Primarily i would see schizophrenia as a psychological/spiritual crisis.

That said however, i do see it as an illness, & that there is a psychopathology & biology to these conditions/experiences - i'm just not convinced that the primary aetiology (cause) is biologic? Stress, Trauma & Adverse life events do appear to be central in people becoming unwell - usually combined within more sensitive individuals.

i've always had & have a lot of interest in spirituality. The question that i have is - Is it that i have been/have a mental illness, & also a lot of interest in spirituality? Or is there some spiritual dilemma inherent within psychosis?

As much as i have made a lot of progress, since first going mad 23 years ago - i also feel that i have a long term illness, & feel i'm not going to ever fully resolve this condition.

i have always felt that there has very much been a spiritual/transpersonal element to the episodes of severe psychosis that i've experienced - But now i'm not so sure? We do have spiritual needs imo, & i do feel that some spiritual approaches can help. i'm just unsure on all these areas?

i have read up on & chatted with a lot of people involved in areas of 'spiritual emergency' - But i wonder if it's dealing with the same conditions/experiences? despite there probably being cross overs.

Would be interested to hear what other people think about it all. Thanks.

i believe im having an spiritual crisis but idk to what extent.

or maybe i do know but am losing it to these medications

i think that is part of the complications, rightly or wrongly; psychiatric medications cause physiological changes, neuroleptic drugs change brain structure, function & chemistry. If it wasn't a primarily biological condition to begin with, it does in part become one on medication.

Part of the confusion in my own case is that i used street drugs heavily from the ages of 15 to 28 - & i wonder how much that also exasperated things?

As far as i can personally conclude is that my own condition is a wide mixture of biological/psychological/social & spiritual factors, but it is an illness/condition, & the spiritual components i feel is now more from my own interests/practises rather than something necessarily intrinsic to the condition? i don't think that anyone really has the answers. Madness/psychosis i feel does very much still remain largely a mystery.

spiritual_emergency was a member who used to post here. I thought that was what you were referring to!

i used to chat with them some years ago.

I've followed the Wiccan path for 25 years, and I've definitely had what might be described as spiritual experiences that some might label as 'psychosis' (eg being in an hallucinatory trance state, feeling like the universe was sending me a message from a higher power through something as simple as a breeze on my face, feeling 'plugged in' to everything - like I could feel the spiritual energy flow of the trees, rocks, animals etc around me, and so on). To me those spiritual experiences have a definite individual and unique quality to them, that is vastly different to what I experience when I'm having actual psychotic symptoms. I'm very lucky in that I have a Pdoc who also has a very good spiritual grounding, and he too has acknowledged that there is a difference between the sometimes profound things people can experience during spiritual experiences, and what constitutes something that would be considered psychosis. It's hard to explain properly, but the two things just don't feel the same.

Thank you for sharing your experience.

Yea, i'd agree. Sounds like you have a good Pdoc. i suppose also that things are so individual as well, & seem to involve so many factors. Some 'extreme distress' i feel is more in line with a spiritual emergency, but i would still see it all as a mixture of stuff.

Within my own experiences of extreme psychosis, there has been what i feel are some momentary deeply spiritual moments.

In my own case - i can see that a lot of the medical theory concerning physiology/biology - Brain development, stress & trauma, pre/perinatal health, etc - Does make sense. i can also see that a lot of psychological/social theory makes sense as well. As well as some of the more transpersonal/spiritual stuff. To me it seems like what i experienced was a bit of everything. The following makes a lot of sense to me -

.....There are real healing opportunities/potentials within a breakdown, even if there is a lot of psychotic elements and the spiritual dimension does not seem so obvious ,I do believe that for everyone there is an opportunity for healing at some level if it was not just seen in the biomedical model but a social, psycho/spiritual holistic model.......

i suppose, & to generalise, that in some people it is likely to be primarily more biologic, in others more social, in others more psychological, & in others more spiritual. But i would expect that there is more of a mixture in most cases? Some people appear very much helped & comforted by the biomedical model, others by more social recovery models, & others by more psychological &/or spiritual models. (or a mixture).

It may well be individual within each case? i'm not sure that it is dealing with 'distinct dis-ease entities'?

In my own case - it's like everything fits & nothing fits - does that make sense? i suppose that there is & always will be a Mystery to Madness.

i'd see it as well that there is a spiritual dimension - that we exist within a psychological/social context, as well as whatever is going on at a physiological/biologic level. It makes sense to me to use a bio/psycho/social/spiritual model.

i have posted a very brief outline of one here - http://forums.psychcentral.com/schiz...ml#post3528460

My own experience was very spiritually based. At the time I felt extremely powerful and magical. I don't feel that way any more to the extent that I did then. I still believe in energy and magic and angels and demons etc. etc. But I now see it differently that I did at the time. It's hard to explain. Sometimes, though, I miss that all powerful feeling.

My MIL has a very, very religious and spiritual psychosis with God and demons, etc. She has 0 insight that it is psychosis. But, she has her faith which is powerful and positive for her, then tangled up with it is this delusion and hallucinations, which to her are 100% real. She led a very traumatized life from early childhood with a lot of abuse, along with a lot of pretty major health problems. Her first psychotic/manic episode was when she was in her mid-30s and I wouldn't be surprised at all to learn it was trauma induced. However, mental illness runs really strong in her family. Her mom, brother, and my husband and his brother all have different types of MI. So, trauma + biology = bipolar with psychosis.

I find all my experiences to be deeply spiritual and they are always connected to spiritual ideas universal myths,symbols,lore etc ,always.

If I had been born in the village my great grandmother was from nothing in what I've experienced would have been considered unusual it's only that I was born in the west.

Read:What a Shaman Sees in A Mental Hospital | Earth. We are one.