WOUNDED​ HEALER
A SHAMANIC PATH TO FREEDOM
The state commonly labeled as “manic-depression” is described here not as a mental illness, but as a profound psychological process—one Jung saw as needing completion in order to reset the psyche.
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In this view, extreme mood states represent a deep encounter with the unconscious rather than a chronic disease to be suppressed.
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Contemporary psychiatry is portrayed as interrupting this inner process by chemically numbing the psyche, which is said to cause serious harm to the individual.
• The text argues that, because the mental health system is heavily financed by pharmaceutical companies, profit tends to take precedence over genuine healing.
Authors such as John Perry, R.D. Laing, Thomas Szasz, Roberto Assagioli, and Carl Jung are invoked to support the idea that psychotic or manic breaks can be terrifying but meaningful encounters with the unconscious, occurring without a strong enough ego to contain the experience.
From this standpoint, such crises are not viewed as “illnesses” but as destabilizing, potentially transformative psychological events
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Responsibility is ultimately placed on each person to investigate, question, and choose a path of healing rather than automatically accepting drug-centered care
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Insider's view of Shamanic initiation
Insider's view of Shamanic initiation
Your way forward will often be met with hostility, doubt, and misunderstanding.
• Those who have never entered this altered state of consciousness—including many mental health professionals and clergy—typically have no inner reference point from which to truly help
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The initial phase of this experience generally requires about six weeks for the individual to begin reorienting to what is happening.
Periods of seclusion, along with supportive changes in diet and lifestyle, are presented as essential elements of the healing process
In earlier decades, dedicated centers such as Diabasis House, Soteria House, The Agnews Project, Burch House, and I‑Ward were created to support this process and consistently showed outcomes that validated a non‑medication approach
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These programs were eventually closed due to lack of funding, while the conventional medical model, worth billions of dollars, was expanded because it generated profit rather than simple healing.
Confronting a billion‑dollar system is extremely difficult and often futile.
A more empowering choice is to do your own research and consciously design a personal system of healing that aligns with your experience and values.
A INITIATION PROCESS
Mistaken for Mental Illness
THE PROCESS
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The time that it takes to go through the process will take approximately six weeks to complete. It is not a easy path to walk. This is not a fix. Your lifestyle that you have been living is a major factor in your experience. The world as we know it is a 'insane' one. Thus the experience you underwent has been a corrective measure by your unconscious to change your reality.
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"... normality is the state of insanity, of spiritual derangement that society must transcend." -- Seth Farber[The Spiritual Gift of Madness]
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Every aspect of your life will be shifted in some way. There are some aspects of the accepted treatment that is shared with the alternative treatment. For one, you need to be removed from your everyday world. The hospital ward is one avenue. A place to be taken care of. The everyday worry of living is taken care of. Sleep and food being two of the major concerns. But instead of being drugged into submission which stops the process, you are allowed to continue through the process under supervision, allowing the process to find its own way through.
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It will take another eight months or so to be able to reintegrate back into the world. In which time you are educated about the process you are going through and the changes that are needed for you to become stable.
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Once you have reintegrated back into the world everything will be different. The term "creative maladjustment", has been used to explain what is needed to be done, summarizes your path. You need to walk a path a tension between the insane 'normal' world and the new world understanding that you have been given.
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'Dangerous gifts' is a term used by the Mad Pride movement to identify the positive aspects of the individual in crisis. The point being that the 'gifts' associated with experiencing a altered reality can become very dangerous if not treated carefully.
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