it’s right find a meaning to things said by a person during a psychotic episode?right or wast of time?why in most delusions people speak of jesus, god and in devil?
These are difficult questions, quite a few books have been written on this. It goes back to the idea of madness, where the underlying assumption of doctors, psychiatrists and philosophers for many years has been that a madman is non-sensical, and that the content of his madness therefore can be discarded. Even today I have friends who have said to me, in a decade of mental illness no psychiatrist has ever asked me about the content of my psychosis.
But is it true that the content of madness is non-sensical? Here in Holland a University professor wrote a prize winning book of philosophy in which he disputes that. He took his own psychotic episode apart, dissecting it to show where he went wrong in his thinking, which mechanisms of thought didn’t work anymore and which did. He got quite a lot of support from academics and doctors, and so many are re considering that position.
There are also some streams of thought within psychology such as the work of Carl Jung, where the content of psychosis is treated as a core part of the patients experience, and so very relevant to treatment. This is basically talking therapy, which goes into such detail as archetypes, the collective unconscious and so on. But most of us never get to see a Jungian therapist, who would ask about these things, they are a minority compared to the mainstream who just use the DSM to label people and prescribe drugs which may or may not work.
But I think there is definitely something to Jungs work on archetypes. You ask why people tend to come up with Jesus, God and the Devil, a lot of it has to do with the fact that these things are very strongly present as meaningful archetypes in the mind, often from childhood.
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http://www.murraystein.com/articles.shtml
There is meaning in madness. It may be symbolic, analogy, metaphor & mythological - But it is there.
Same here. Noone has asked about the content of my psychosis. I’ve told my nurse some…a few things, but my psychologist just say I have to learn to live with the voices and my pdoc just asks me if the meds are effective.
I belive it is because you are fed with god and devil since childhood. I had evil angels trying to harm me and guardian angels protecting me. I used to draw a lot while psychotic. I did not find words to write. My drawings were of dragons batteling in the beginning and dragons in harmony later when meds kicked in and made the evil spirits go away.
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I do believe there is something to the content of delusions.
My family is not really Christian… we were raised with a more mishmash diluted Buddhist idea and none of my delusions involve Jesus or the Devil.
But I did once think I was being tapped to become a Zen master.
My delusions have been pretty consistent as I’ve grown up. Due to some family history I’ve been fighting off kidnappers my whole life. (despite the fact that ALL the people I accused never have snatched a kid)
I do think there is a life reference. I’ve also read that different cultures have different common delusions.
I guess the brain takes what’s in the mind and blows it up. That’s just my uneducated theory anyway.
Many psychologists I’ve talked to would say yes, there is meaning - but probably not the meaning that you might think or many people would interpret.
For example - people might have delusions about being Jesus. Jesus is a very popular and (many believe) powerful figure. A person who has the delusion that he is Jesus would, while having that delusion, believe that he (or she) is a very powerful and popular person. The “meaning” or “source” of the delusion might be this: In real life - the person having the delusion might actually not be feeling very powerful or popular in their life. The delusion helps the person feel better about himself or herself.
This is the type of analysis I think many psychologists might do on this type of delusion.
And as far as why do delusions frequently deal with god, jesus and the devil. Simply because in many cultures these are powerful and popular concepts and so people incorporate them into their delusions because they are something they know about. Delusions tend to use the popular issues of that time and location.
Here is a story on this issue:
http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2008/11/10/cultural-content-of-schizophrenic-delusions/
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The messianic delusions are very common - John Weir Perry fleshed out a meaning in it all, as have others -
http://www.alchemyrealm.com/psychosis.htm
[quote]Stress may cause highly activated mythic images to erupt from the psyche’s deepest levels in the form of turbulent visionary experience. Depending on whether the interactions between the individual and the immediate surroundings lean toward affirmation or invalidation, comprehension of these visions can turn the visionary experience into a step in growth or into a disorder, as an acute psychosis. Based on his clinical and scholarly investigations, John Weir Perry has found and formulated a mental syndrome which, though customarily regarded as acute psychosis, is in actuality a more natural effort of the psyche to mend its imbalances. If the upset is received in the spirit of empathy and understanding, and allowed to run its course, an acute episode can be found to reveal a self-organizing process that has self-healing potential.
This book examines what the acute “psychotic” experience stirs up in the psyche and how to empathetically respond. Understanding the function of mythic themes is reached through the author’s investigation into myth and ritual of antiquity and also the visionary experience undergone by prophets and social reformers in various ages and parts of the world.[/quote]
I think modern psychologists typically have a very different interpretation than John Weir Perry (who died almost 20 years ago). Psychology has changed a lot in the past 20 to 40 years. I would be careful about using writings from 20 to 40 years old in any area of study, other than archeology.
& i don’t think most of them have a clue what they are talking about.
There are dozens of psychology journals that apply $10s of millions of dollars in research studies each year, done by thousands of psychologists around the world.
Maybe you’ve read a lot of these and understand the theories - but for me, I just talk to the researchers and I haven’t read that much compared to them - and so I don’t dismiss their their theories. I tend to think that people who spend lots of money and time studying things - tend to learn things that are frequently valuable.
& i think that humanity has lost it’s way, lost it’s heart & soul & is in a box of it’s own making. i’ve spent thousands of hours researching, have read hundreds of books - does that account for nothing? Over what? Some state sanction paradigm of a clockwork/mechanical, dead & materialist Universe? This world can keep & seal it’s fate - i want no part of it.
THe world is full of 6 billion people, and millions of square miles of beautiful land and animals. That means a lot of variety, lots of good and sometimes not so good.
I choose to enjoy the positives, work on improving the negatives, and spend time with the many people I do find enjoyable.
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Wonderful. Few see what i see.
You may need to apply a bit of caution, but it’s throwing the baby out with the bath water to not quote from older writings. There are many fields such as philosophy where older writers are still very relevant.
In terms of modern writings in peer reviewed magazines, there have been some shocking utterances by commissioning editors about the pollution of scientific literature with studies that blatantly distort the truth, by using small sample sizes for instance. Science writing apparently is not what it once was.
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Yes, like aliens. In my case I think the delusions mean that I watch and read a lot of sci-fi. Anyone who took more than that from any of my ramblings is welcome to help themselves to my meds.
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I tend to view the world in patterns. There are some horrible ones out there to be seen. The good news is that even the smallest change can make a pattern run opposite to itself. I choose to try to be that change in the world, to change those patterns I can reach out to and have an effect on.
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Absolutely - but at the same time, I find that most more modern scientific (and I include psychological sciences in that grouping) theories and research generally are built upon the more solid and time-tested and researched theories that came before them.
Few theories or research areas are entirely new - they are all built upon the successful / accurate forebearers.
If you focus on the old materials - I think there is greater risk that you’re missing a lot from the newer research.
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Interpreting or establishing meaning, however, is quite unlike your average scientific inquiry. For one, how do you put meaning to the test? It seems to me it is not an empirical matter. Hermeneutics typically belongs to the humanities.
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Ah but you are establishing meaning primarily as a healing device. You are drawing particularly on the power of belief to do a good part of the healing, which means the meaning has to resonate with the patient, but because it is meaning of dreams or psychoses it’s not quite subject to the same rigorous tests of truth as meaning in the real world might be.