unpacking psychology and psychiatry

[Jhanananda]

To further our investigation in how mystics are typically marginalized we will have to spend sometime unpacking western psychology and psychiatry to see how they have influenced the western culture regarding mystics.

Psychosis
Psychosis refers to an abnormal condition of the mind described as involving a "loss of contact with reality". People with psychosis are described as psychotic. People experiencing psychosis may exhibit some personality changes and thought disorder. Depending on its severity, this may be accompanied by unusual or bizarre behavior, as well as difficulty with social interaction and impairment in carrying out daily life activities.

Psychosis (as a sign of a psychiatric disorder) is a diagnosis of exclusion. That is, a new-onset episode of psychosis is not considered a symptom of a psychiatric disorder until other relevant and known causes of psychosis are properly excluded.[2] Medical and biological laboratory tests should exclude central nervous system diseases and injuries, diseases and injuries of other organs, psychoactive substances, toxins, and prescribed medications as causes of symptoms of psychosis before any psychiatric illness can be diagnosed.[2] In medical training, psychosis as a sign of illness is often compared to fever since both can have multiple causes that are not readily apparent.[2]

The term "psychosis" is very broad and can mean anything from relatively normal aberrant experiences through to the complex and catatonic expressions of schizophrenia and bipolar type 1 disorder.[3][4][5] In properly diagnosed psychiatric disorders (where other causes have been excluded by extensive medical and biological laboratory tests), psychosis is a descriptive term for the hallucinations, delusions, sometimes violence, and impaired insight that may occur.[4][6] Psychosis is generally the term given to noticeable deficits in normal behavior (negative signs) and more commonly to diverse types of hallucinations or delusional beliefs, especially as regards the relation between self and others as in grandiosity and pronoia/paranoia.

An excess in dopaminergic signalling is hypothesized to be linked to the positive symptoms of psychosis, especially those of schizophrenia. However, this hypothesis has not been definitively supported. Many antipsychotic drugs accordingly target the dopamine system; however, meta-analyses of placebo-controlled trials of these drugs show either no significant difference in effects between drug and placebo, or a moderate effect size, suggesting that the pathophysiology of psychosis is much more complex than an overactive dopamine system.[7][8]

Signs and symptoms

People with psychosis normally have one or more of the following: hallucinations, delusions, catatonia, or a thought disorder. Impairments in social cognition also occur.[9][10]
Hallucinations

A hallucination is defined as sensory perception in the absence of external stimuli. Hallucinations are different from illusions, or perceptual distortions, which are the misperception of external stimuli.[11] Hallucinations may occur in any of the senses and take on almost any form, which may include simple sensations (such as lights, colors, tastes, and smells) to experiences such as seeing and interacting with fully formed animals and people, hearing voices, and having complex tactile sensations.

Auditory hallucinations, particularly experiences of hearing voices, are the most common and often prominent feature of psychosis. Hallucinated voices may talk about, or to, the person, and may involve several speakers with distinct personalities. Auditory hallucinations tend to be particularly distressing when they are derogatory, commanding or preoccupying. However, the experience of hearing voices need not always be a negative one. One research study has shown that the majority of people who hear voices are not in need of psychiatric help.[12] The Hearing Voices Movement has subsequently been created to support voice hearers, regardless of whether they are considered to have a mental disorder or not.

Delusions

Psychosis may involve delusional beliefs, some of which are paranoid in nature. Put simply, delusions are false beliefs that a person holds on to, without adequate evidence. It can be difficult to change the belief, even with evidence to the contrary. Common themes of delusions are persecutory (person believes that others are out to harm them), grandiose (person believing that they have special powers or skills), etc. Persons with Ekbom syndrome may have delusional beliefs of an imaginary parasite infestation,[13] whereas depressed persons might have delusions consistent with their low mood (e.g., delusions that they have sinned, or have contracted serious illness, etc.). Karl Jaspers has classified psychotic delusions into primary and secondary types. Primary delusions are defined as arising suddenly and not being comprehensible in terms of normal mental processes, whereas secondary delusions are typically understood as being influenced by the person's background or current situation (e.g., ethnicity; also religious, superstitious, or political beliefs).[14]

Catatonia

Catatonia describes a profoundly agitated state in which the experience of reality is generally considered impaired. There are two primary manifestations of catatonic behavior. The classic presentation is a person who does not move or interact with the world in any way while awake. This type of catatonia presents with waxy flexibility. Waxy flexibility is when someone physically moves part of a catatonic person's body and the person stays in the position even if it is bizarre and otherwise nonfunctional (such as moving a person's arm straight up in the air and the arm staying there).

The other type of catatonia is more of an outward presentation of the profoundly agitated state described above. It involves excessive and purposeless motor behaviour, as well as extreme mental preoccupation that prevents an intact experience of reality. An example is someone walking very fast in circles to the exclusion of anything else with a level of mental preoccupation (meaning not focused on anything relevant to the situation) that was not typical of the person prior to the symptom onset. In both types of catatonia there is generally no reaction to anything that happens outside of them. It is important to distinguish catatonic agitation from severe bipolar mania, although someone could have both.

Thought disorders

Thought disorder describes an underlying disturbance to conscious thought and is classified largely by its effects on speech and writing. Affected persons show loosening of associations, that is, a disconnection and disorganization of the semantic content of speech and writing. In the severe form speech becomes incomprehensible and it is known as "word salad".

Relevant Sources:
Chan-Ob, T.; V. Boonyanaruthee (September 1999). "Meditation in association with psychosis". Journal of the Medical Association of Thailand 82 (9): 925–930. PMID 10561951.

[Jhanananda]

When we examine the above description of Psychosis we can see a number of ways in which we here can be diagnosed as Psychotic such as:

personality changes
unusual or bizarre behavior
difficulty with social interaction and impairment in carrying out daily life activities.
relatively normal aberrant experiences
hallucinations,
delusions,
impaired insight
diverse types of hallucinations or delusional beliefs, especially as regards the relation between self and others

The exclusionary items do not list the practice of meditation; thus, because the practice of meditation can cause various non-sensory to be observed by the subject, then, if they are reported, the subject could be diagnosed with a Psychotic disorder.

[Jhanananda]

Religious delusion (Psychosis)
A religious delusion is any delusion involving religious themes or subject matter.[1][2] Some psychologists have characterized all or nearly all religion as delusion.[1][3] Other psychologists focus solely on a denial of any spiritual cause of symptoms exhibited by a patient and look for other answers relating to a chemical imbalance in the brain, although there is actually no evidence of pathology in any mental illnesses which means a diagnosis is made purely on opinions of professionals based on symptoms the person exhibits.

Definition

Individuals experiencing religious delusions are preoccupied with religious subjects that are not within the expected beliefs for an individual's background, including culture, education, and known experiences of religion. These preoccupations are incongruous with the mood of the subject. Falling within the definition also are delusions arising in psychotic depression; however, these must present within a major depressive episode and be congruous with mood.[4]

Researchers in a 2000 study found religious delusions to be unrelated to any specific set of diagnostic criteria, but correlated with demographic criteria, primarily age.[5] In a comparative study sampling 313 patients, those with religious delusion were found to be aged older, and had been placed on a drug regime or started a treatment programme at an earlier stage. In the context of presentation, their global functioning was found to be worse than another group of patients without religious delusions. The first group also scored higher on the Scale for the Assessment of Positive Symptoms (SAPS),[6] had a greater total on the Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale (BPRS),[7] and were treated with a higher mean number of neuroleptic medications of differing types during their hospitalization.[5]

Religious delusion was found in 2009 to strongly correlate with "temporolimbic instability".[8] This is a condition where irregularities in the brain's limbic system may present as symptoms of paranoid schizophrenia.[9]

In a 2010 study, Swiss psychiatrists found religious delusions with themes of spiritual persecution by malevolent spirit-entities, control exerted over the person by spirit-entities, delusional experience of sin and guilt, or delusions of grandeur.[10]

Religious delusions have generally been found to be less stressful than other types of delusion.[5] A study found adherents to new religious movements to have similar delusionary cognition, as rated by the Delusions Inventory, to a psychotic group, although the former reported feeling less distressed by their experiences than the latter.[11]

History

Behaviours out of the ordinary were traditionally viewed as demonic possession.[12] These episodes, although entirely disavowed by modern psychiatry,[13] are evaluated by clinicians only such that they fall within the safety of a treatment programme.

Earlier[when?] propositions that religious shamans were motivated by delusions and that their behaviour resembled that of patients with schizophrenia were found to be incorrect.[14][15]

In a 1937 essay, Sigmund Freud stated that he considered believing in a single god to be a delusion,[1] thus extending his 1907 comment that religion is the indication of obsessional neurosis.[16][17] His thoughts defining "delusion" perhaps crystallized from the notion of the religion formulations of the common man (circa 1927) as "patently infantile, foreign to reality";[18] around the same year he also stated that religion "comprises a system of wishful illusions together with a disavowal of reality, such as we find in an isolated form nowhere else but amentia, in a state of blissful hallucinatory confusion".[19]

Prevalence

Examples from a 295-subject study in Lithuania showed that the most common religious delusions were being a saint (in women) and being God (in men).[20]

In one study of 193 people who had previously been admitted to hospital and subsequently diagnosed with schizophrenia, 24% were found to have religious delusions.[21]

A 1999 study identified that religious delusions were often present or expressed in persons with forensic committal to a psychiatric unit.[22]
Clinical examples

Biblical

A 2012 paper suggested that, when compared with experiences today, psychiatric conditions associated with psychotic spectrum symptoms may be possible explanations for some revelatory driven experiences and activities such as those of Abraham, Moses, Jesus and Saint Paul. However, the paper admits that the study was not aimed to deny supernatural elements, nor was it conclusive on whether their experiences were delusional in part or not at all.[23]
Historical

A religious experience of communication from heavenly or divine beings could be interpreted as a test of faith. An example of such is Joan of Arc, La Pucelle d'Orléans,[24] who rallied French forces late in the Hundred Years' War.

Daniel Paul Schreber is an example of a supposed religious delusion occurring in a developed condition of psychosis.[25] Schreber was a successful and highly respected German judge until middle age, when he came to believe that God was turning him into a woman. Two of his three illnesses (1884–1885 and 1893–1902) are described in his book Memoirs of My Nervous Illness (original German title Denkwürdigkeiten eines Nervenkranken),[26] which became an influential book in the history of psychiatry and psychoanalysis thanks to its interpretation by Sigmund Freud.[27]

Auditory hallucination and crime

An individual may hear communication from heavenly or divine beings compelling one to commit acts of violence. An example recorded in antiquity is the case of the Hebrew patriarch Abraham,[28] who was commanded by God to sacrifice his son Isaac.

In contemporary times persons judged to have experienced auditory hallucination include those who hearing voices instructing or motivating them to commit violent acts. These auditory experiences are classified by psychiatry as command hallucination.[29] Persons acting to commit murder are reported as hearing voices of religious beings such as God,[30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37] angels,[38] or the Devil.[39]

Within the anti-psychiatric community, Professor Thomas Szasz separates religious auditory hallucination from religion: those who hear the voice of God talking to them are experiencing schizophrenia, while those who talk to God but hear no response are simply praying.[40]

[Jhanananda]

I found this paper Revealing the secular fence of knowledge: Towards reimagining spiritual ways of knowing and being in the academy expressed the mechanism behind why atheism dominates the western sciences, and explains, in part, why mystics today are marginalized in Western society.

[follinge@gmail.com]

http://psychologic-anarchist.com/2016/02/12/lay-siege-to-the-therapeutic-state-unmake-psychiatry/

Psychiatric Myths Unveiled

"The Therapeutic State is the marriage of government and psychiatry. Government is the warmongering tribal leader. Psychiatry is the charlatan medicine man.  The enterprise is a rampaging behemoth that wields a deadly blend of deception and violence. It is an incestuous relationship that damages and harms everyone in its path. It does not heal or alleviate “mental illness,” as it claims. It exercises control over the population, while paying lip service to curing “mental illnesses” and leaving a trail of chemically lobotomized zombies in its wake.

The Therapeutic State has granted psychiatrists ungodly powers. They can lock people up in asylums called “mental health facilities,” without due process and without consent. They have the authority to defraud people into drinking potions that numb and destroy minds.

Thus, psychiatry represents one of the most dangerous attacks on freedom, and it goes almost unobserved by libertarians, anarchists, and other freedom focused individuals. Psychiatry is the new church. It is like the cathedrals of the Dark Ages. It conducts its witch hunts with impunity. It must be stopped, but people have to understand the enemy.  Here, I will deconstruct the concept of “mental illness”—the cornerstone of psychiatry—and question the field as a scientific and medical discipline."

[Jhanananda]

Well said, follinge.