| Sally
Clay is an advocate and consultant for the Portland
Coalition for the Psychiatrically labeled, a group
run by and for ex-psychiatric patients. She has written
that,
For me, becoming "mentally ill" was always
a spiritual crisis, and finding a spiritual model
of recovery was a question of life or death. (1987)
She describes the role that religion played in her
recovery following two years of hospitalization while
diagnosed with schizophrenia at the Hartford Institute
of Living (IOL):
My recovery had nothing to do with the talk therapy,
the drugs, or the electroshock treatments I had received;
more likely, it happened in spite of these things.
My recovery did have something to do with the devotional
services I had been attending. At the IOL I attended
both Protestant and Catholic services, and if Jewish
or Buddhist services had been available, I would
have gone to them, too. I was cured instantly-healed
if you will-as a direct result of a spiritual experience.
(p. 91)
While hospitalized, she had a powerful religious experience
which led her to attend religious services. Many years
later she went back to the IOL to review her case records
and found herself described as having "decompensated
with grandiose delusions with spiritual preoccupations." She
complains that "Not a single aspect of my spiritual
experience at the IOL was recognized as legitimate;
neither the spiritual difficulties nor the healing
that occurred at the end" (p. 92).
Even once back in the community, Sally Clay found
that the spiritual dimensions of her experience were
discounted by members of the religious community:
After I was hospitalized and drugged, I tried at
times to talk to friends, priests, or other religious
persons about the spiritual aspects of my experience.
And with very few exceptions, I was told that my
spiritual experiences were only symptoms, merely
a part of my 'sickness.' As a result of this rational
advice from people who were supposed to know, I tried
for 20 years to convince myself that these experiences
were, indeed, sick and that I should just forget
about them. But the fact that my extreme mental states
were based on spirituality was so evident to me that
no amount of therapy or drugs could eradicate my
unspoken conviction. (p. 89)
Clay is not denying that she had a psychotic disorder
at the time, but makes the case that, in addition to
the disabling effects she experienced as part of her
illness, there was also a profound spiritual component
that was ignored. She highlights how the lack of sensitivity
to the spiritual dimensions of her experience on the
part of mental health and religious professionals was
detrimental to her recovery. Nevertheless she has integrated
her experiences into her personal mythology (LINK) as
a spiritual journey.
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