Integral/Holistic view of schizophrenia

i personally take an integral/holistic view of my condition/experiences - bio/psycho/social/spiritual - that things are mediated across spirit - soul/psyche - physical body/brain - social/environmental. i don't see any either/or with it all, but rather that everything is interrelated & interdependent.
imo Carl Jung spoke a lot of sense on all these matters, as have others.

Current mainstream psychiatry primarily focuses on the physical - the physical body/brain. Psychological & social elements often seem secondary to that, & the areas of the soul & spirit are usually excluded.

Obviously it is impossible to argue a case for the spiritual with a materialist, as many now appear to be.
i've spent the past 10 years on-line trying to raise awareness of & explore the spiritual in mental health, to little avail. Am interested in other people thoughts on the matter. Thanks.

Are not my eyes reflected in yours?
And don’t all things press
On your head and heart,
And weave, in eternal mystery,
Visibly: invisibly, around you?
Fill your heart from it: it is so vast,
And when you are blessed by the deepest feeling,
Call it then what you wish,
Joy! Heart! Love! God!
I have no name
For it! Feeling is all:
Names are sound and smoke,
Veiling Heaven’s bright glow.

Goethe's Faust

Etymology The word psyche comes from the ancient Greek for soul or butterfly. The fluttering insect appears in the coat of arms of Britain’s Royal College of Psychiatrists.

The term “psychiatry” was first coined by the German physician Johann Christian Reil in 1808 and literally means the ‘medical treatment of the soul’ (psych- “soul” from Ancient Greek psykhē “soul”; -iatry “medical treatment” from Gk. iātrikos “medical” from iāsthai “to heal”). – Wikipedia

I'm more of a materialist than a dualist, but I guess also holistic like you are. I believe soul/spirit and body are all words for the same thing. I don't dismiss spiritual things as false, I just think everything about humans, including the spirit, comes from the body.

I really like that quote from Faust.

Do you adhere to a kind of panpsychism?

I had to look that up, but yes, that sounds like what I believe. Specifically, I believe physical properties like the "objective" world and spiritual properties like our subjective consciousnesses are two sides of the same coin. Just different in the way that inside and outside are differerent, if that makes sense to you. It's all information at different levels. And like all things have physical properties, all things also have consciousness and spiritual properties, since they are the same.

i don't entirely agree, but can see the sense in it. i see the spiritual & physical as being intertwined as well - But also see the reality of higher spiritual Worlds/realities.

i think panpsychism (& other forms of secular spirituality) can help bridge the gap between the materialist & spiritual positions.

It seems to me that psychiatrists focus on the body/brain, and therapists focus on more of the social and environmental things. If only the two parties worked together to help us. I do feel that these things can't really be separated.

Like my psychiatrist always blames my mania on meds, and my therapist more rightly blames stress. I rarely have episodes that aren't preceded by bouts of extreme stress from environmental or social factors. That's what makes me stop sleeping and triggers an episode. I don't think it's ever been just from a med change. It's not that simple.

I don't know about the spiritual stuff though. I'm not a spiritual person, and don't really believe in that stuff. I have to get my "spiritual fix" from the rational/scientific world, which is a little tricky, but still possible in my opinion. I can't deny that I have FAITH in the scientific method (for the most part), and faith is a spiritual concept.

Hi. Thanks for the reply. The more progressive people within mental health areas i think do fully acknowledge that physiology/biology can't be separated from psychology & environment. There is a consensus for a bio/psycho/social viewpoint & understanding.

All i'd add to that is the spiritual/transpersonal (beyond the individual ego).

Yes, i think it's all very individual & complex, mediated by myriad personal & environmental factors. i think there needs to be a far more comprehensive, integral, inclusive & multi-faceted approach/understanding to all these areas.

The dicotomy between psychiatry & psychology & imo spirituality is silly - i think there needs to be a professional & understanding approach that validates, acknowledges & incorporates a biological, psychological & social view (i'd also add spiritual) - mind, body, soul, spirit - within environment. A genuinely integral understanding & approach.

Some people are trying - a bit dated, but the book 'Healing the Split' by John E. Nelson, is one example of someone trying to unify an understanding of the psychiatric with other fields.

Healing the Split

It is interesting that you say that. For many reasons (that i could explain) - i do see scientific materialism primarily as a belief system.

Interesting that the original poster copy and pasted my signature of Goethe's Faust in the same translation. I am very familiar with Jung's method of Depth psychology and his search for soul.

I focus on philosophy of mind, psychology and have read many of the classics. After reading so much literature, from Descartes, Leibniz, Berkley, Newton, Locke, Humes, Chalmers, Churchland, Dennett I take the once and for all, categorical position of an ontological (what has being) agnostic. That the ancients call the soul, or what today we call the self is shrouded in mystery. There is nothing more intimate to ourselves than consciousness, yet so mysteriously exists.

In my position the last stronghold of a ruthlessly materialist world is beauty and art. Is poetry grounded in the viscera? That question is for someone at a much higher pay grade than me.

It's a very good quote - have nicked it & used it in a few places.

i think Jung was a pioneer of the psyche - ahead of his time, & ahead of this one.

It is to my understanding a central question/inquiry.

True art inhabits a higher stage of development, imo.