From my usb - Recovery from Schizophrenia ...
Not entirely sure what site this comes from - try Google?? -
Abstract: Much needless suffering results from ignorance of the multidimensional nature of the human personality, human psyche or "human nature". Insights on the nature of human nature are revealed by combining Western scientific research with new concepts provided by Eastern psychologies such as Buddhism. These insights can be applied to the study of the healthy healing process involving psychic overload of uncontrollable spiritual growth i.e. spiritual emergency or so-called 'schizophrenia'. Schizophrenia is not a 'mental illness' but an intense transpersonal or "spiritual" experience involving spiritual awakening or "spiritual emergence".
It is a chaotic and uncontrollable self-organizing process which represents positive transformation of the self and has been designated as a psychospiritual crisis or 'spiritual emergency'. The apparent 'craziness' of spiritual emergency reveals the passage into a higher consciousness state required for effective adaptability. The result is so-called 'individuation', 'self-realisation', 'self-actualisation', 'spiritual renewal' or 'rebirth' and represents the affirmation of a life of total well-being or 'high level wellness'. Spiritual emergency is a part of the human condition and involves the 'beyond ego' or 'transpersonal' dimension of human nature. It is therefore a concern of so-called 'depth psychology', also known as 'spiritual psychology' or 'transpersonal psychology'.
Schizophrenia has been described as a nonspecific disease by the psychiatric profession. This supposedly devastating condition was originally named by the German psychiatrist Emil Kraepelin (1856-1926). Kraepelin believed that the condition involved an irreversible mental deterioration and coined the term 'dementia praecox' - Latin for 'prematurely out of one's mind'. It later became clear that the term was a misnomer and a new term was coined in 1910 by Swiss psychiatrist Eugen Bleuler (1857-1939) who was noted for his kindness and humanity. Bleuler was the teacher of Carl Jung and professor of psychiatry at the University of Zürich where he headed the famous Burghölzli Clinic. Since the condition seemed to involve a mental split between thought and emotion, Bleuler coined the term 'schizophrenia' for 'splitting of the mind'. The term is derived from German 'schizophrenie' from Greek 'skhizein' meaning 'to split' and 'phren' of unknown origin meaning 'heart or mind'. According to Greek etymology, "schizophrenia" actually means 'broken soul' or 'broken heart".
Although there is still no universally accepted definition of the term, it has been applied to many so-called 'mental illnesses' including a set of socially and culturally unacceptable thinking and behaviour patterns which other people greatly dislike thus making it a model of "unwanted conduct". The condition is largely misunderstood as a result of people's fear of the unknown.
It turns out that schizophrenia is not a disease or "mental illness". It is not a hopeless condition but a brilliant one. In fact schizophrenia is a personal 'story' which involves a natural and temporary self-organising transformative process or crisis of transformation, a "psychospiritual crisis" now known as 'spiritual emergency' - the term coined by psychiatrist Stanislav Grof. Spiritual emergency is a self-healing process involving the dissolution and removal of illusions and false beliefs originating in the programming of social conditioning which gives rise to aberrant thought complexes and prevent the person from making accurate evaluations for effective decision-making and appropriate social adaptation.
Enjoy your day!
