Psychosis, Psychiatry and Psychospiritual Considerations : Engaging and Better Understanding the Madness and Spiritual Emergence Nexus

A psychological and spiritual investigation of severe mental disorders. From a psychiatric perspective, psychosis is generally viewed as a psychopathological and often incomprehensible mental disorder of biological cause. In his book, Brian Spittles argues that this represents a rather limited view, and that a psychospiritual investigation of psychosis may enable a better understanding of its nature and determinants, His aim is not to negate the discipline of psychiatry, but to demonstrate the viability and efficacy of incorporating psychospiritual considerations into psychosis research. Within these pages, Spittles challenges several core psychiatric beliefs, and call for the discipline to extend its investigative parameters beyond the limited epistemological bounds of materialism. The book uses an open-ended heuristic approach that enables the systematic examination and critical appraisal of views on psychosis across the materialist-to-metaphysical spectrum. This is structured in four ‘Focal Settings’ that sequentially examine the construal of psychosis within different paradigms of psychospiritual understanding, which provide a historical overview of evolving understandings of psychosis within the tradition of psychiatry, in which psychospiritual matters are generally not considered. A phenomenological and spiritual investigation of anomalous mental experiences. From a psychiatric perspective, psychosis is generally viewed as a psychopathological and often incomprehensible mental disorder of biological cause. In his book, Brian Spittles argues that this represents a rather limited view, and that a psychospiritual investigation of psychosis may enable a better understanding of its nature and determinants. His aim is not to negate the discipline of psychiatry, but to demonstrate the viability and efficacy of incorporating psychospiritual considerations into psychosis research. Within these pages, Spittles challenges several core psychiatric beliefs, and calls for the discipline to extend its investigative parameters beyond the limited epistemological bounds of materialism. The book uses an open-ended heuristic approach that enables the systematic examination and critical appraisal of views on psychosis across the materialist-to-metaphysical spectrum. This is structured in four'Focal Settings'that sequentially examine the construal of psychosis within different paradigms of psychospiritual understanding, which provide a historical overview of evolving understandings of psychosis within the tradition of psychiatry, in which psychospiritual matters are generally not considered. "Dr. Brian Spittles elucidates the history of how the psychiatric diagnostic criteria for psychosis were formulated, who helped create them, the cultural backgrounds in which they arose, the influence of various factions and industries that shaped them, and how we ended up in our current highly suboptimal situation of reductionist diagnostics. He then critiques the key psychosis diagnostic criteria, demonstrating how each are part of the global range of human spiritual experience and provides a range of other possible spiritual and pragmatic interpretative frameworks from various traditions and cultures that might lead to vastly more satisfying outcomes for patients, providers, healthcare systems, societies, and humanity."--Foreword by Dr. Daniel M. Ingram, MD MSPH