SHADOW OF MENTAL HEALTH

     When you look at this site, it might feel like a science fiction movie. You wonder what this weird stuff that goes by different names--unusual phenomena, the Strange, the paranormal, and parapsychology--have to do with a field known for its science. This page will help you understand why I have devoted the rest of my career to challenging mainstream psychiatry, psychology, and the now popular neuroscientist claims about the human experience.

      My challenge to my colleagues and the field as a whole isn't out of some ill-motive. I love what I do and the field that I am in. I am, however, concerned that psychiatry, psychology, and psychotherapy have taken what is more of an art and turned it into indisputable science. We would all like to have certainty about how and why we tick as humans. But much of this quest can at best only be done with tentative conclusions. Yet, the field has presented itself to the public as a resource of conclusive findings, when, in fact, it is not. Below I show you why.

     This is especially important in the field of the strange. My reason, and that of others interested in this domain, for respectfully challenging conventional psychiatry, psychology, and neuroscience is in large measure because of how it eventually discards ontological and epistemological diversity found in various cultures, tribes, and spiritual traditions, many of which make up the western population. This great body of multiplicity understands reality to consist of immaterial properties, which includes things like god, spirits, and some definition of ongoing consciousness. For one field with narrow methods to determine reality and what constitutes as normal and abnormal with regard to human experience is a far cry from providing healing to all.

  

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     To make my point, I sometimes ask my friend and colleague, "If the bible is the word of god, would you use it in your studies?" Usually, the answer goes something like this, "Yes, I would if it was the word of god." My response in waiting is, "So why don't you use it?" "Because it isn't a reliable text," replies my good ole' friend. "Exactly! You wouldn't because even though to the public the bible is portrayed as an accurate and infallible text, in private, namely, close examination, the bible is filled with contradictions and discrepancies, enough to dismantle any argument you use it for. In other words, if the bible is flawed, so is your position on any subject matter."

​     The DSM is portrayed as an empirically-based text, yet it is far from it. In educating the public, I provide clips from history on how mainstream psychiatry developed and what procedures were used to build the DSM. It isn't to discourage someone from seeking mental health treatment, but it is to question  the current verdict power it has been given. When there have been prejudices or biases against gender and sexual identity, the Black community, Native Nations, Latin communities, and women, the DSM is already an unattractive resource. When disorders are created with less than conclusive research, that is, other research cannot replicate its findings, the DSM has become an unreliably decisive resource. And when traditional psychiatry claims that mental disorders have a biological cause in the brain that cannot be conclusively demonstrated ("etiology is unknown"), the DSM's main artery is severed.

​     Unlike "Cultural Psychiatry" (Karen Eriksen and Victoria E. Kress, Beyond the DSM Story) where each village, tribe, and population's ontology and epistemology is given equal say, mainstream psychiatry has constructed the DSM that is more than ready to dismiss any view that doesn't conform. And in the case of experiencers, mainstream psychiatry pathologizes credible and functional individuals and groups for mentioning some encounter that cannot be reduced to a material form of knowing. 

 

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     There are ways outside of the DSM to ensure that a client is not mentally suffering, which in the world of experiencers often includes the presence of psychosis. Psychosis is poorly defined by the DSM, but it is described by its strong western epistemological bent to dismiss the immaterial. Today, the term holds several meanings in the field, which one would expect given that the field is more of an art than a science.

     I carefully hold to three definitions. Each one moves away from the theory that psychosis is a biological disease. The first defines psychosis* within the context of unusual phenomena. A person undergoes an actual experience or set of experiences that prove overwhelming. This shift activates in sometimes extreme form imagery, sound, perception, sensory info, and emotion derived from or related to the actual event. In some cases, such activations could be traditionally understood reactions of psychosis. Chaos and blurriness from living between two worlds can make it difficult for the client to distinguish current reality from a shift into expanded Consciousness. Symptoms, which have an intelligence to them (Danielle Knof and Michael Selzer, Breakdown Breakthrough), can serve to convert intelligent madness into a transformational and meaning-making narrative. The mystic's experiencing God is an example.

     The second definition appears to derive from external events or surroundings. This is not to say that it isn't real to the person experiencing, but it involves a perception gone real (Wouter Kusters, A Philosophy of Madness). The experience can be, nevertheless, overwhelming and can prove to be dizzy. Imagery, sound, perception, sensory data, and affect seem random in nature, but eventually with support they can take on meaningful roles as voice-hearers beautifully demonstrate. 

     The third is a looser definition and has more to do with a quiet version of madness (Knof and Selzer). We all fall into this category. We all live with illusions, projections, and scripts of our world and ourselves. We bounce in and out of a reality in which we 'see' and 'hear' people and things. When I trained in a psychiatric hospital for 9 months, I remember a saying: "Patients are like us, only more so." Nevertheless, most of us function well and live a relatively happy life.​​

​     Unfortunately, mainstream psychiatry and psychology give a description rather than a definition of what constitutes psychosis. Moreover, they place themselves in a position to determine which content is considered psychotic and which is "normal". While psychotic material can be wild, the bizarre nature of the narrative does not always mean something is completely hallucinatory. Is the testimony of a whole village seeing the mother Mary just a psychotic episode? Is the report by some 60 children seeing a UFO just a set of symptoms?

   Mainstream psychiatry and psychology measure the content of psychosis from a narrow, material epistemology.​Seemingly unaware of its oppressive nature, they are driven by their own prejudices to determine normalcy for countless cultural and spiritual traditions. Mainstream psychiatry's need to preserve a supposed medical model of mental illness forces them to continue using what I call "Epistemological leverage". Sharing similarities and differences on how to see and know the world is always a worthy conversation. Telling millions of people that "our" way of knowing is the correct way to understand reality is an ethical dilemma. ​​​​​​​

* Some use "Psychosis-like" to distinguish from mainstream psychiatry's definition.

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​     Susan Clancy, a clinical psychologist who did her postdoctoral work at Harvard University, gave a lecture titled, "Abducted: How people come to believe they were kidnapped by aliens", which was recorded in Microsoft Research YouTube in 2016. Clancy had written a book back in 2005 under the same title, where she argued that reports of UFO abductions are due to sleep paralysis.* At one point during the lecture, the author stated that some who have written in defense of abduction reports publish their works outside of the psychological field. Why not Peer Reviews? she implied.

     There's an easy explanation, one that I am surprised Clancy didn't mention. Peer Review journals screen out material that doesn't align with key foundational principles of the profession. Some call this a type of screening to preserve the integrity of the practice. Others call it control. Consequentially, any journal that goes against conventional practice will have no choice but to find another publisher. ​

         * Sleep paralysis is a medication condition that should be left to the medical profession to discuss.

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​     There is much to say about the evolving neuroscience, so consider this a jumpstart into a popular subject. It is important to tread carefully and humbly when hearing about "discoveries" made by the field. We love simplicity, even at the expense of reason. The brain is far too complex to expect a rush of conclusive research. For example, a lot is said about certain sections of the brain being activated or lit up. But what does that mean? Sally Satel and Scott O. Lilienfeld point out in their book, Brainwashed, that one section, including the "brain spots", of the brain can represent several emotional reactions, sometimes quite the opposite than commonly known. And because sections of the brain are not lit up doesn't mean they don't play some role in the process.

     Over time, I have read about the pros and cons of neuroscience, especially as it relates to the subjective in human experiences. Thoughts, emotions, memories, the will, and the unconscious are invisible realities that demand a lot of interpretation. The researcher only sees what might be a representation of these realities. And it is there that preconceived ideas, epistemological and ontological preferences, and biases enter the picture. 

     For example, mainstream psychiatry and psychology see the mind as the sole product of the brain. When the brain dies, so does the mind. However, using another form of epistemology, as many cultures and spiritual traditions have adopted, mind is not the sole product of the brain and when the brain dies there is ongoing consciousness. Both are theories based upon which epistemology one uses, but each can lead the researcher to make very different interpretations.

     Besides how a neuropsychologist enters the study, there are other some factors to consider before absorbing any new findings. Neuroscience is an expensive procedure, which means that research can't go on forever. In addition, inviting disciplines from other fields are well in order. Biology and anthropology, for example, can complement neuroscience's pursuit to understand human behavior. However, this is not the standard of practice, some say.

     More specifically, Satel and Lilienfeld offer insightful concerns not often discussed upon 'findings': (1) the fMRI two-to-five second delay between blood flow and neural activity; (2) "Practice suppression", where brain activity levels are less visible due to its repeated nature; (3) statistical errors involved in pushing large numbers from a battery of tests; (4) reverse inference, which involves taking an end point of a test, in this case brain activity in a certain area such as the amygdala, and ascribing a common or agreed upon mental state such as fear; (5) how a difference exists between the language of how an organ functions with the language of how the mind functions; (6) the way questions and tests are arranged; and (7) the temptation to fish for further correlations at the expense of other potentially relevant factors (pp. xvi, xvii,16-21).

    There is much that we don't know in the field of mental health. Thus, it is risky to tie a biological function with a mental state. For sure, to be dogmatic when too many factors compose the mystery of the brain is to be less than professional or scientific.

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  Reports of unusual phenomena by experiencers are often dismissed my mainstream psychiatry and psychology. For example, trauma is commonly considered a reason for a mystic having a vision of the divine or for a group of people witnessing a UFO. Depression with psychotic features is another diagnosis popularly used to explain a widow seeing or feeling her deceased husband entering the room.  Diagnostic impressions might look logically driven and in some cases seem to have validity, but the knee-jerk association to almost every unusual phenomena reported begins to look suspicious. Certainly feels dismissive. But what if we turned the tables around just for argument sake to demonstrate that automatic dismissals by the mental health profession can backfire?

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     Several surveys have been taken to describe the mental health profession as a suffering one. In one survey of 1000 psychologists randomly chosen, some 62% self-identified themselves as depressed and with 42% with depressive symptoms having at least suicidal ideations (Psychiatry Advisor. Batya Swift Yasgur. 2019. "Challenging Stigma: Should Psychiatrists Disclose Their Own Mental Illness"). In a 2015 survey of Canadian psychiatrists, 487 psychiatrists (31.6%) reported experiencing a mental illness (Ibid). There are other reports in with findings that suggest concern for the profession as a whole. Equally concerning is how some mental health professionals struggle to come forward with their own diagnosis, suggesting a lack of transparency to disclose.

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     In spite of such numbers, the mental health profession is composed of credible and functional individuals. For sure, psychiatrists, psychologists, and mental health counselors are given the benefit of the doubt. Thus, they are entrusted with the care of the public. They are seen as reliable in making interpretations of their clients experiences and conditions. And this in spite of their own histories. But when it comes to ordinary, functioning, credible individuals with some history of mental suffering, they cannot be trusted with their own experiences.