Psychiatry And The Spirit World

A psychiatrist’s comprehensive examination of evidence for the survival of consciousness after death • Explains the author’s practice of psychiatric spirit release, centered on the spiritual and psychic aspects of emotional disturbance • Offers profound accounts of the survival of the spirit after death, from ancient times to the present day, including near-death experiences, out-of-body experiences, reincarnation, and dreams • Examines evidence for mediumship, clairvoyance, telepathy, and the psychic aspects of heart transplants After a twenty-year break from practice, Alan Sanderson returned to clinical psychiatry at age fifty-nine and soon realized that many of his patients were plagued by troublesome earthbound spirits, some of whom had been attached across lifetimes to multiple incarnations as well as multiple hosts. By talking with these attached spirits and persuading them to leave their hosts, Dr. Sanderson found remarkable success in the treatment of his patients. Now, more than 30 years later, Dr. Sanderson shares his extensive research on the afterlife, the survival of consciousness after physical death, and paranormal phenomena related to the spirit world. He explains his practice of psychiatric spirit release, centered on the spiritual and psychic aspects of emotional disturbance, and shares case studies complete with full accounts of treatment sessions. He offers first-hand accounts of the survival of the spirit after death, from ancient times to the present day, and explores end-of-life experiences, including what is witnessed by the living people in the room, as well as profound accounts of near-death experiences, out-of-body experiences, and reincarnation. He examines evidence for mediumship, clairvoyance, telepathy, and the psychic aspects of heart transplants. He also details cases of remote healing, further proving the existence of connections beyond the material world. Presenting a wealth of evidence, as well as suggestions for new treatment possibilities for mental health problems, Dr. Sanderson offers a comprehensive examination of spirit existence and the survival of consciousness after death.

Divided into three parts, this volume considers theoretical principles and trends, clinical perspectives, and the future relationship of psychiatry and religion. In addition to offering both historical and current perspectives on psychiatry and the major world religions, this book addresses topics rarely discussed in psychiatric literature.

Challenging an exclusively medical approach to mental health and illness, this book considers the impact psychiatric drugs can have on spirituality. In the last thirty years, a dramatic rise in medication as a treatment for mental illness has occurred in tandem with increasing numbers of people entering treatment with a spiritually-oriented understanding of their suffering. The unforeseen result is that some people taking psychiatric drugs are engaging with them in ways that can have a profound impact on the course and outcome of treatment. Based on interviews with people on psychiatric medication who regard spirituality as significant in their lives, this book reveals how medication can be perceived as both helpful and harmful to spirituality. The author argues that spirituality must be considered in debates around psychopharmacology.

This book examines a collaboration between traditional Māori healing and clinical psychiatry. Comprised of transcribed interviews and detailed meditations on practice, it demonstrates how bicultural partnership frameworks can augment mental health treatment by balancing local imperatives with sound and careful psychiatric care. In the first chapter, Māori healer Wiremu NiaNia outlines the key concepts that underpin his worldview and work. He then discusses the social, historical, and cultural context of his relationship with Allister Bush, a child and adolescent psychiatrist. The main body of the book comprises chapters that each recount the story of one young person and their family’s experience of Māori healing from three or more points of view: those of the psychiatrist, the Māori healer and the young person and other family members who participated in and experienced the healing. With a foreword by Sir Mason Durie, this book is essential reading for psychologists, social workers, nurses, therapists, psychiatrists, and students interested in bicultural studies.

A comprehensive examination of the many ways the spirit world affects the material plane and our minds • Provides a detailed guide to the Afterlife and its inhabitants • Reveals the spirit influence behind many mental disorders as well as psi abilities and creative genius • Includes checklists of symptoms of spirit “overshadowing,” methods from the world’s top exorcists, and instructions on how to free unwanted spirits from the material plane We are spirits housed in a body, and just as houses can be haunted, so can people. When the living succumb to dissociative states of consciousness, they become a magnet for lost but clinging spirits. Known as jinn, dybbuk, daemon, wuqabi, or simply the undead, they hover unseen on the earth plane, ready to inhabit the most suitable body available. Documenting the life of wandering spirits and their impact on vulnerable human targets, Susan Martinez offers a radical departure from the standard psychological explanations for a host of pathological behaviors--including multiple personality, autism, epilepsy, migraines, obsessive compulsive disorder, depression, schizophrenia, anxiety, PTSD, self-destructive urges, and strange outbursts--and reveals that hallucinations are often true impressions of spirit input. Martinez explains how mental health comes down to the delicate balance between self-control and spirit-control. When trauma triggers an escape response, the soul takes flight, leaving the mind susceptible to possession by discarnate entities. However, the spirit world can also bestow gifts upon those whose psyches are open, such as in the case of mediums, shamans, people who communicate with angels, and many of the world’s creative geniuses. Martinez presents “overshadowing” by spirits as a universal, cross-cultural phenomenon, documenting modern and traditional accounts as well as corroborating indigenous beliefs. She examines soul decay, soul travel both before and after death, as well as how knowledge of the spirit world can offer positive treatments for disorders like schizophrenia and autism. Providing a detailed guide to the spirit world and its inhabitants, the author offers checklists of symptoms of “overshadowing,” methods from the world’s top exorcists, and instructions on how to free spirits so they can continue their journey into the beyond--all the tools necessary to forearm us against soul snatchers and other enemies of the Light.

This book investigates the psychological toll of conflict in the Middle East during the twentieth century, including discussion of how spiritual and religious frameworks influence practice and theory. The concept of mental health treatment in war-torn Middle Eastern nations is painfully understudied. In Disturbing Spirits, Beverly A. Tsacoyianis blends social, cultural, and medical history research methods with approaches in disability and trauma studies to demonstrate that the history of mental illness in Syria and Lebanon since the 1890s is embedded in disparate--but not necessarily mutually exclusive--ideas about legitimate healing. Tsacoyianis examines the encounters between "Western" psychiatry and local practices and argues that the attempt to implement "modern" cosmopolitan biomedicine for the last 120 years has largely failed--in part because of political instability and political traumas and in part because of narrow definitions of modern medicine that excluded spirituality and locally meaningful cultural practices. Analyzing hospital records, ethnographic data, oral history research, historical fiction, and journalistic nonfiction, Tsacoyianis claims that psychiatrists presented mental health treatment to Syrians and Lebanese not only as a way to control or cure mental illness but also as a modernizing worldview to combat popular ideas about jinn-based origins of mental illness and to encourage acceptance of psychiatry. Treatment devoid of spiritual therapies ultimately delegitimized psychiatry among lower classes. Tsacoyianis maintains that tensions between psychiatrists and vernacular healers developed as political transformations devastated collective and individual psyches and disrupted social order. Scholars working on healing in the modern Middle East have largely studied either psychiatric or non-biomedical healing, but rarely their connections to each other or to politics. In this groundbreaking work, Tsacoyianis connects the discussion of global responsibility to scholarly debates about human suffering and the moral call to caregiving. Disturbing Spirits will interest students and scholars of the history of medicine and public health, Middle Eastern studies, and postcolonial literature.

The new edition of this successful text builds on the very latest research to present an original and unique exploration of the psychology of both spirituality and psychosis. The editor brings together fascinating perspectives from a broad range of distinguished contributors. This new edition covers the most recent body of research, both qualitative and quantitative, in its exploration of the interface between psychosis and spirituality, and investigation into anomalous experiences Ten new chapters added and the remaining text completely updated New to this edition is an expanded clinical section, relevant to clinicians working with psychosis Offers a fundamental rethink of the concept of psychosis, and proposes new insights into spirituality Includes feature chapters from a distinguished list of contributors across a broad range of disciplines, including Peter Fenwick, Peter Chadwick, David Kingdon, Gordon Claridge, Neil Douglas Klotz and David Lukoff

A bold call for the “insane” to reclaim their rightful role as prophets of spiritual and cultural transformation • Explains how many of those diagnosed as schizophrenic, bipolar, and other forms of “madness” are not ill but experiencing a spiritual awakening • Explores the rise of Mad Pride and the mental patients’ liberation movement • Reveals how those seen as “mad” must embrace their spiritual gifts to help the coming global spiritual transition Many of the great prophets of the past experienced madness--a breakdown followed by a breakthrough, spiritual death followed by rebirth. With the advent of modern psychiatry, the budding prophets of today are captured and transformed into chronic mental patients before they can flower into the visionaries and mystics they were intended to become. As we approach the tipping point between extinction and global spiritual awakening, there is a deep need for these prophets to embrace their spiritual gifts. To make this happen, we must learn to respect the sanctity of madness. We need to cultivate Mad Pride. Exploring the rise of Mad Pride and the mental patients’ liberation movement as well as building upon psychiatrist R. D. Laing’s revolutionary theories, Seth Farber, Ph.D., explains that diagnosing people as mad has more to do with social control than therapy. Many of those labeled as schizophrenic, bipolar, and other kinds of “mad” are not ill but simply experiencing different forms of spiritual awakening: they are seeing and feeling what is wrong with society and what needs to be done to change it. Farber shares his interviews with former schizophrenics who now lead successful and inspiring lives. He shows that it is impossible for society to change as long as the mad are suppressed because they are our catalysts of social change. By reclaiming their rightful role as prophets of spiritual and cultural revitalization, the mad--by seeding new visions for our future--can help humanity overcome the spiritual crisis that endangers our survival and lead us to a higher and long-awaited stage of spiritual development.