Mental Illness & Shamanic Experiences (podcast/video)
Psychology, psychiatry and psychoanalysis as schools of thought are less than 150 years old, and we shouldn't be surprised if such young sciences have gaps of knowledge, questions that are still left open, or even questions that are outright ignored. It's possible, even likely, that the modern psychiatric model of mental illness is incomplete, and could learn things from other schools of thought.
Many people have the conception that being diagnosed with a mental illness means that you have a chemical imbalance. However, such "illnesses" are normally diagnosed by looking at behaviour, rather than blood tests or other chemical tests to determine amounts of chemicals in one's brain. So, at least in the majority of cases, the "chemical imbalance" idea is just an assumption.
In contrast, there are shamanistic traditions which stretch back hundreds or even thousands of years. Shamans have been helping people through the strange times in their lives even before recorded history. Is it possible that psychiatry and psychology still have a lot to learn from shamanistic methods?
This is a clip from an interview that Andrarchy (Andrew Levine) did with Kurt, and more clips will be coming over the next couple of weeks.
Check out @andrarchy's post about the same interview here, where he also introduces the concept for The Andrarchy Show.
Read the post with full show notes and related links on The Paradise Paradox
To download this episode in audio, right click here and press 'Save as'.
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Thank you for not claiming modern psychiatry is complete bullshit. That's a dangerous opinion for vulnerable people to hear (seen it around here too much), and I question the mental state of those who claim such.
Unanswered questions; I agree. Cultures used to integrate mental abnormalities in people via shamanism and such roles, which are not valued as much in the civilized world. Maybe it just changes? Do you think Carl Jung was in ways a shaman?
Well, my stronger criticisms of psychiatry come a bit later in the interview haha. But I don't think either of us would say it's complete bullshit.
If it was just that they weren't valued as much, that would be fine. But some are made into pariahs for thinking differently. It's something that's swept under the carpet, so when someone has one of these unusual experiences, nobody around them knows how to behave or how to help. I have to wonder if there can be a middle ground between saying to people in this situation "we're going to take you to someone who can guide you," and "you're sick and we're going to take you to someone who can fix you." I knew intuitively that I didn't need to be fixed, and I needed something which the society I lived in didn't know how to offer.
Yes, I definitely think Carl Jung was a kind of shaman. He does write about certain mystical experiences, such as his meetings with Philemon - things which would make people pigeonhole him as crazy today.
I find it unusual that you'd question the mental state of someone who didn't believe in psychiatry. If you pin someone as crazy, it does make it easy to dismiss their arguments. I don't know what you've read, but a dismissal of psychiatry alone doesn't make someone mad, nor does it mean their criticisms are entirely invalid. If they claim to know with 100% certainty that psychiatry is an Illuminati plot because of a code they read on the bottom of a Coca Cola can, then they might need support.
It is
notall BS no. (wrote that wrong initially) Most in the field take a guess at treatment. Only read about one that actually looks at the brain. Practically every other field looks at something of the physical body where as this profession doesn't? That seems rather odd...Love the ideas and works of Carl Jung.
One section of psychiatry? Or one psychiatrist? Do you have some more info about it?
You are thinking of the "mind-body" problem. No one can solve this. it's an existential issue that psychiatric researchers do actually seek to solve.
Have you been to a psychiatrist? They ask questions while studying your body posture, your affect, voice tone; psychomotor state. Many other things aside from behaviour.
In Canada there are a lot of initiatives to fight stigma against mental illness. I'm sure they're similar in other countries. The programs focus on awareness of how common it is to experience at least some symptom, whether anxiety or mild depression. It's something digestible to people whatever they believe. The link between shamanism those of us into philosophical side of it thins might see the value in exploring, but it's not as easy to translate to people who don't think in thse terms.
one fallacy I see with the mental illness as spiritual experience, is that in times when this was the case it actually was an adaptive trait to the human environment.** Now the world has changed, we cant even imagine what life was like in tribal cultures (for the most part, I realize they still exist) and psychotic symptoms are maladaptive. It is the best thing for someone that they are taken to a mental health centre. Where I live they are calm environments, and aren't cold and institutional places, tho i realize in some countries they are.
Regarding questioning peoples sanity (mental state was my term);
Often people who write off psychiatry completely have a mental health problem, of varying severity. The irony is that they don't want to admit that they have a problem and are self-stigmatizing, so claim that it is psychiatry which seeks to label people as 'abnormal'. When really, no one knows how normal mental health struggles are more than psychiatric professionals. They see the worst of it. And there is danger in romanticizing it as something that could be treated without medication.
Do you have to take meds regularly now?
** edit: consider that our thoughts were once attributed to deities and that had spawned religion
So you're saying that, in tribal cultures, these sorts of experiences were beneficial and helpful to society, and to the individual. But these days, people who have these sorts of symptoms are maladapted to a modern society. It's difficult for me to accept that, knowing that I have adapted to society, and depending on who you ask, some would say I've adapted better than most.
As we discussed in the video, it seems that these types of experiences can give people perspective beyond the culture that they live in. Is there any culture that you can imagine which wouldn't benefit from greater perspective? The world has changed, but it hasn't changed so much that people aren't limited by their culture. As long as people are limited by culture, shamans will be necessary. In fact, the more that people claim that perspective outside of their culture isn't necessary - the more that they claim that their culture hasn't limited them - the more shamans are necessary.
Okay, I understand that's your opinion. You haven't addressed what I said. You're asserting that they have problems, but you're not providing any evidence. As I said, even if they are crazy, even if they are absolutely off-the-wall bonkers, and even if they are wrong about psychiatry as a whole, that doesn't necessarily mean their criticisms are inaccurate.
That may be. I think you are missing a key distinction here. Psychiatrists see these mental states as illnesses to be treated. Yes, they may see it as "normal" (i.e. common) for people to be in these states, but it's unlikely for them to wonder: What can this individual gain from this experience? They may see the person as undergoing an experience which is common, but they will very rarely see the experience as either: normal, healthy, or beneficial.
If it's true, then it's not romanticising, is it?
Negative, I have never taken any psychotropic psychiatric medications.
Here's a like to my previous article on the subject, if you'd like to read it: https://steemit.com/philosophy/@churdtzu/mental-illness-how-and-what-to-learn-from-your-mind-breaking
It wasn't my intent to imply that I took issue with your perspective. I will have to write a post on the issue as I've lots to say. but I will make a note to address your comment in this thread more thoroughly later today.
I'm not exactly sure what you're referring to, but okay, I await your response.
You both could be delusional... Couldn't resist. Good points brought up by both of you! :)
There is also the thought that mental illness not existing. But rather being an illusion from the result of the illusion of society if that makes sense.
Do you mean like, some people are normal so they seem like they're crazy? Or that everyone is deluded and mentally ill are just figments of their imaginations? Haha.
Mental illness in some if not many cases is a response to the environment.
There was a doctor of some sort from India that moved a mentally ill patient to Africa to live a completely different life. The (previous) mental illness vanished.
Yes, very interesting. I haven't read that case, but there was a similar case where a boy moved from a western country to Africa, talked to shamans, and they said that he was becoming a healer, so of course he responded differently. I guess it's like they say, it's no measure of health to be well-adapted to a sick society.
Yes. Really is no measure. Last year I was living free mostly in the woods. Coming back to the other / society life. But unfortunately got Meningitis and this mental illness is an illness. But I find to be great increased by people's ill informed minds and this includes doctors and lawyers...
Yes, it's hard to find a good doctor sometimes.
I may mean there is no normal, everyone seems crazy, everything is deluded, and it all makes good fig newtons that should just be eaten by hungry people so they aren't so hungry anymore.
Maybe hunger is our most true form of suffering and the rest is a delusion in response to what we think in response to what another thinks. hence not being our thoughts. As none of our thoughts are truly our own as we think outside and inside ourselves but not of ourselves. Hence the inner and outer delusion!
I love this! So happy to find your page here as I peruse the psychology section. :) upvote & following
First I'd like to state that I believe it's a positive thing that you have dealt with a psychotic break without medication and can serve as an example to help people like you. Anti-Psychotics are the psych meds with the worst consequences, many people struggle staying on them.
You're right, that doesn't logically follow. What I mean by the dangers in that belief is some people do need medication and may not seek it for those reasons, and justify it to themselves by believing psychiatry is totally bunk. There's a variety of psychological motivations for that; one example being denial their state of mind harms themselves and loved ones, another that they self-stigmatize and so deny diagnosis. This is anecdotal but we are both sharing anecdotes, that's valid in discussion. I could likely find some evidence. I'm not replying to try to disprove you tho so rather not take the time.
I don't think a psychiatrist would say someone can't learn from it. Remember, that psych professionals don't think they are curing anything with these meds, just reducing symptoms and harm (hopefully, as meds dont work for everyone).
There are psychiatrists who take a lot of interest in the experience of their patients and view it as a way to further learn about the mind and human experience. I'm not sure why there's the impression that its a cold, strictly clinical profession!
In terms of your experience being told that you need psych meds as your episode would happen again, there are good reasons they did that:
Combine the two and they have to tell you that's the treatment.
If it's ok with you, I'd like to explore the topic more personally. May I ask how your life and behaviour was during the time of your psychotic break? Were you able to take care of basic hygiene, prepare meals, recognize that your talking to plants wasnt entirely normal?
edit: I'm not trying to trap you, I wouldl ike to know other circumstances regarding why you have been able to be without meds.
I have had the experience of having normal mental health for two years before it 'came back'
Hey! I love podcasts so il be sure to check this out and follow your page! In really interested in new and progressive ideas and keeping myself mentally healthy