Conventional neuropsychology believes that unipolar depression is a biochemical imbalance in the brain. This view promotes pharmaceutical treatments that neutralize the effects of the imbalance. Cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT), the prevailing form of psychotherapy authorized by insurance companies for depression, believes that faulty thought patterns cause emotional states.
This view leads to approaches wherein "cognitive distortions" are examined. Outcomes research shows that a combination of medication and CBT is more effective than either approach alone in dealing with depression.
This is all some people need to regain normal functioning and a satisfactory life. But others may not be experiencing simply a product of neurochemistry or distorted thinking. They may be dealing with phenomena known as spiritual emergency or vital force malaise -- and these problems require solutions that include if not entirely focus on the spiritual / vital force aspects of the whole self.
Spiritual emergency (SE), detailed by Stanislov and Christina Grof more than 20 years ago in their ground-breaking work, is defined as a process of growth and change that has become chaotic or overwhelming such that dramatic phenomena or unusual states of mind are experienced. The Grofs, and others who have researched in this field, have so far identified 11 possible forms of SE including dark night of the soul, episodes of unitive consciousness, past life "bleedthrough," and possession states -- all of which can have components that could be misinterpreted as signs and symptoms of unipolar depression.
The Western scientific split of mind from spirit (and body) literally demonized admittedly difficult yet potentially transformative experiences into mental illness. In the process, persons having such experiences are robbed of their personal growth value. Without the spiritual or tranformative context, all that's left is to believe that the mood state is a neuro or psychopathology.
From a more vitalistic paradigm, there can be innumerable ways that one's spirit or vital force can be adversely impacted to cause what might be termed chronic spiritual malaise that is felt as depression, among other emotional states. Homeopathy, transpersonal counseling, energy psychology techniques, flower essences and nature-based psychotherapies are among the effective alternative treatment options within this paradigm.
Why are such experiences considered spiritual?
Because absence of meaning -- as in feeling your life is without purpose or that you don't feel a living connection to a spiritual source -- is a spiritually significant condition. Also, there is spiritual or religious content or meaning for the person going through the experience, and these experiences significantly suppress one's life spirit (vital force).
What makes SE experiences an emergency?
When SE experiences aren't supported by personal belief systems, or by the general or medical culture, the spiritual growth potential inherent in the experience can be missed or repressed, thus creating a sense of urgency or breakdown in one's healing and evolution.
In a practical sense, SE or spiritual malaise can be misdiagnosed as a psychopathology, and sufferers may be given medications that do more harm in their side effects than good in alleviating depressed emotions because they don't address the underlying spiritual cause.
SE is also a play on words: emergency / emergence.
Emergence is the deeper significance of the experience. Something is happening in the psyche (soul-mind) that is signaling an emergence of a new spiritual path or evolution, if the signs can be accurately interpreted. What is needed is for the individual to receive appropriate psychospiritual midwifing through their time of crisis or chronic malaise.
As a holistic psychologist, I believe that practitioners working with such individuals must have enough grounding in both the conventional and the vitalistic paradigms to be able to watch for appropiate danger signs from both worlds in order to serve the client's best healing interest.
How would you know if a period of depressed emotion is better framed as a SE?
The difference is usually one of intensity and duration, as well as impairment of one's normal functioning. SEs tend to be episodic rather than lingering consistently over months or years. Malaise can be present in what the individual thinks is their normal but stressful, unhappy, and unfulfilling life.
A spiritual malaise may have components similar to SE
These components can produce or mimic a variety of moods and states of consciousness that can seem like depression:
· the sense that personal identity is breaking down
· feeling old values no longer hold true , or no longer are serving you
· feeling the ground beneath your personal reality is radically shifting, causing you to feel paralyzed or to question the point of going on
· feeling fearful, confused, disoriented, or stuck
· feeling lethargic, ambivalent, agitated or irritated
· having difficulty coping with daily life, job, or sustaining relationships
· feeling you've lost your ability to be ever be happy again
· having the sense of being abandoned by one's god or spirit allies
· preoccupation with themes of death---ritual killings, sacrifices, martyrdom, afterlife
· sense of loss of personal boundaries
· experiencing visitations from angels, divine beings, suprahumans, ancestors, lightbeings, etc
· sense of receiving information/messages that you feel unable to get others to believe or respect
· feeling you've lost touch with reality
· feeling that psyche and body have been invaded
· feeling controlled by hostile or disturbing entities or energy outside yourself
How can people in distress work with the distressing transformative growth?
I believe the distress of these experiences are calling us to take a journey into ourselves. The journey is the education and growth processes of mind and spirit.
Learn enough about the spiritual system or culture that your individual experience comes from to understand it as a blessing instead of a curse. Use a variety of techniques or get professional help with options like hypnotherapy, astrology, tarot, guided imagery, flower essence remedies, creative expression, and other methods to understand the messages and lessons embedded in spiritual emergencies and spiritual malaise. These experiences can be transformed into personal empowerment-------turning emergency into emergence.
Copyright 2006 by Deah Curry PhD
Originally published in the May 2006 PWN edition of Wisdom Magazine
