It is quite common that people who have experienced mental problems, especially those who end up in psychiatric hospital care, feel that they are misunderstood and mistreated by the psychiatric system. How can that be? Why do they seem to believe that psychiatrists and mental health staff don’t have their best interests at heart? Is […]

Based on my own experiences of psychoses and healing, I would say yes. My personal experience is that it was indeed a hidden trauma that caused my psychotic episodes.    It was not a clear trauma that was behind the first psychosis, however, at age 17. I had had a fairly normal childhood, but been

In my last blog, I wrote about how finding information about the connection between psychosis and spiritual crises had a profound impact on my healing. In particular, the book Spiritual Emergency, by Christina and Stanislav Grof, an American psychiatrist and his wife who have researched altered states of consciousness. The book describes different types of

Can a psychosis have a spiritual aspect? Or is psychosis only an illness that causes erratic behavior and meaningless hallucinations? This is a question that is likely to cause controversy. Psychiatry is reluctant to see meaning in experiences that are viewed merely as disorganized thoughts or pathology. However, many of those who have experienced psychosis themselves, feel that

In the summer when was 17, I had a reactive psychosis. It was so intense that I went catatonic for a few days. I spent a month in hospital but recovered fairly quickly. In the autumn I went back to school and carried on with life as normal.  The doctors had said that it could

In spring 1997 I went on an adventure and moved to London. Days working at a restaurant, nights at the hostel in Earl’s Court, with South Africans and Aussies, the backpacking thing. I had had a psychosis six months earlier, and it had left me feeling a bit brain-dead. Depressed. I thought it was the

There have been some experiments around the world done regarding alternative treatment for psychosis. One of these is Soteria House in San Francisco, which was led by Lauren Mosher between 1969-71. In general, psychiatric hospitals rely on drug treatment, psychosis is seen as an illness that needs to be “treated”, and doctors have decision-making power

Open Dialogue was developed by Jaakko Seikkula and his team at the Keropudas Hospital in Tornio, North Finland, for the treatment of first-episode psychosis. The results of this treatment model have been very encouraging. It has been said that these results for treating psychosis are the best in the Western world and that schizophrenia is