Spiritual Emergency - Clinical Response

Mental or physical health problems caused by psychological disruption, meditation or spiritual experiences.

Spiritual experience can feel blissful, but it can also feel like hell when the practitioner has not developed a firm enough foundation. Hallucinations, seizures, pain, panic attacks, mania, severe depression may result naturally after an overwhelming spiritual experience.

The spiritual journey is one that invites the dissolving of ego identity through ritual and gradual, controlled experiment to reach transpersonal levels of consciousness. Through spiritual disciplines, intense prayer, yoga, breathing exercises, chanting, and meditation; unexpected thoughts and amplified sensory experiences are a normal outcome and are frequently unnerving.

Reactive distress can arise from physical challenges such as disease, injury, near death experiences, surgery, pregnancy, childbirth, abortion, and miscarriage or emotional challenges such as intense encounters in a wide variety of life adjustments, transitions, and physical and psychological therapies.

Intense sexual experience, often a powerful catalyst to transpersonal development and spiritual experience can overwhelm the capacity of the ego.

Likewise, drugs can induce spiritual experiences which can dangerously imbalance the psyche.

Clinical response to spiritual emergency is based on the principle of good enough functioning to carry on from day-to-day; otherwise a medical referral is necessary. Treatment is usually composed of inculcating cognitive understanding of the process and specific exercises designed to ease the transformation underway.