Mental Health Paradigms Assignment part 2 VICTPC Module 6 By Danny Lopez
In this part two of my essay, I will be describing two scenarios to accommodate an individual having a mental crisis from the perspective of two psychological models. One will be from the lens of a shaman, while the other will be a combination of mainstream Psychology and Psychiatry diagnosis. I begin by exploring this patients paradigm from a Shamanic view, and to outline how a shaman would approach and facilitate person during a mental crisis. A shaman would treat these experiences this patient is showing symptoms of as a spiritual emergence. Strategies to heal and assist people going through such a crisis have been in practice by native and ancient cultures…show more content… In fact, when energies from the spirit world merge with a person from the western psyche, that person can be totally unequipped to deal with what is happening to them, therefore rendering them insane by conventional psychiatric and psychology standards. It can also be a terrifying experience for any mind oblivious to this reality if the right assistance isn't there to help facilitate the necessary environment needed for a patient to work through such an ordeal. The Shaman view this crisis as a breakthrough from another level of reality. They would also look at medications such as antipsychotic drugs as a threat to an individual integrating with an energy that may lead to soul development and growth. From the shamanic view, this is a standard process and right of passage for anyone entering such an altered state of consciousness. To the Shaman or people with psychic abilities, witnessing such entities or paranormal behaviour invisible to your everyday person can be part of the job criteria for a spiritual…show more content… When this kind of overload occurs, and if a person is not ready for such an overwhelming attack of images and thoughts, most people would then go into a state of frenzy. If this were to happen, the first thing required would be to disconnect the individual's energy field from the intense foreign energy/entities by leveraging a shamanic practice called a sweep. The shaman conducts this by clearing out the person's aura. By cleansing the energy field, an individual is no longer subject to the overload of information coming in therefore they no longer experience the disturbing images and scary thoughts driving them insane. With the assistance of a shaman and support of that community, the person is then able to align his energy with the spirit/energy wanting to come in via the other side of the spiritual plain, thus giving birth to the healer.9 The blockage of the energy emergence is what causes a person to experience a breakdown creating severe mental trauma. A good analogy would be to describe a machine blowing fuses and malfunctioning. The job of the shaman is to prevent this from happening by aligning the energies so a person can reach their full potential as the healer they are meant to be. These rituals vary in each culture around the world, and as
