Category: psychosis

Mad Spiritual musings on diversity and inclusivity

Did your altered states have spiritual significance or might you be interested in considering how that lens might be applied? Please join us then! We want to create community and support for all of us who’ve experienced madness as having significant spiritual significance. Whether we’ve been psychiatrized or not and whether we’ve considered madness in terms of the psychiatric labeling or not. That would include anyone labeled with psychosis, schizophrenia, bipolar, schizoaffective, or psychotic NOS. That would also include anyone who has had experience with altered states that have not been pathologized by psychiatry, by self or others.

Bipolar: contemplation about the psych label

I am life. I am psychedelic. I am kaleidoscopic. I am conscious. I am aware. I am silence. I am chaos.  The term bipolar *disorder* attempts to diminish. Two poles? In a world of endless spectrums all interlacing into oneness? What nonsense. The term bipolar is attached to people like me. We frighten those "treating" us. We are sensitive, open, people in need of shamanic-like guidance.

Beyond withdrawal…

I see in retrospect that some core, vital part of me was always there during the drugged years, learning and remembering much that would help me in these years of coming off meds and now being med free. I no longer believe that I “lost” my life to drugs. This is, as Mary Oliver, puts it, my "one wild and precious life."

Understanding and Working With Psychosis (Part II of II)

by Joel Schwartz, PsyD -- First and foremost, if psychosis is indeed a process of growth and reorganization following an initial breakdown, then the primary task of the therapist is not to cure or prevent the psychosis in the person, but accompany them through their transition into something else.

Understanding and Working With Psychosis (Part I of II)

Joel Schwartz, PsyD - Psychosis is, perhaps, the most misunderstood and feared psychological phenomena – despite the fact that every person is capable of psychosis, and most of us have actively psychotic parts of our personalities.

An inclusive approach to mental health: Not all in the brain

submitted to Beyond Meds by Oxford University Press - By Michelle Maiese -- For many years, the prevailing view among both cognitive scientists and philosophers has been that the brain is sufficient for cognition, and that once we discover its secrets, we will be able to unravel the mysteries of the mind. Recently however, a growing number of thinkers have begun to challenge this prevailing view that mentality is a purely neural phenomenon. They emphasize, instead, that we are conscious in and through our living bodies. Mentality is not something that happens passively within our brains, but something that we do through dynamic bodily engagement with our surroundings. This shift in perspective has incredibly important implications for the way we treat mental health –

Returning to Dialogue – The Core of Healing Madness

When people are “mad,” they are often insisting that certain things are so, and frequently seem unwilling or incapable of appreciating or learning from other perspectives. Yet when the supposedly “sane” mental health system approaches those who are mad, it typically does the same thing ...

When Self-Care Bites

By Elisabeth Svanholmer -- Yesterday self-care was like looking into the dark abyss – yesterday self-care meant making a painful decision. Only two-three options to choose from and they all sucked one way or the other… My head, heart and gut strongly disagreed on the way to go, so what to do? When in doubt I listen to my gut.

Thirty Months Off – Renée is drug free and getting healthier everyday

By Renée Schuls-Jacobson -- It’s been thirty months since I took my last bit of Klonopin, a dangerously addictive medication that a doctor prescribed for me when I was suffered from insomnia. Thirty months since my world flipped upside down. -- These days, I don’t take any prescribed medication. None. And I dumped my psychiatrist. ...

Disclaimer: I’m not a doctor

Someone has stated a concern that I am not clear enough about my level of expertise and says I don't have any authority to say what I'm saying. So this is my disclaimer: I am a human being. I read and study and experience life. I am not a doctor and never claim to be.

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