Basically the differences between someone who is having a spiritual experience and someone who is mentally ill are as follows:· A mystic, someone who has experienced God, is humbled by the experience. This person can tell you about their experience over and over again. The story won’t change much as they tell you. This is called having a good ego and inner strength to explain the experience. The person has/had a “life” before the experience, which in psychological terms is called “good pre-episode functioning”. Mostly in telling you about spiritual experiences, the person describes something visual. (They can hear also but the preponderance of what my clients have described have been visual experiences). The spiritual experience usually gives an answer to the person having it and they are humbled by the experience. A mentally ill person having a hallucination cannot tell you the same story over and over again. A mentally ill person usually acts in a grandiose manner.
Would you like to share an experience with Dr. Herrick? Please submit the form and your experience will be emailed to her directly. If you would like a session please submit the form with your email and place your phone number in the body of the message. Our office will contact you regarding rates for sessions. Contact our Office: Rev. Karen Herrick -205 Broad Street Red Bank, New Jersey 07701 Ph: 732-530-8513 Email: karen@karenherrick.com
What Does Crazy Mean?
WHAT DOES “CRAZY” MEAN? Usually when people tell me of a spiritual experience, they’ll start by saying, “I don’t have the words to describe this to you,” or “You’re going to think I’m crazy when I tell you this, but…” And then they tell me what happened to them.
One definition of the word crazy is being of unsound mind or being mentally imbalanced, deranged or insane. When I was married to my alcoholic husband, the more emotions I showed outwardly, the more he called me crazy. The more he called me this, the more I felt crazy because I was the only one in the relationship admitting to feeling anything. Many times people who come to me who are considered to be the crazy one in the family are just having a lot of feelings and are showing them outwardly. They might also feel crazy because of something that has happened to them like the spiritual experience above.
Basically the differences between someone who is having a spiritual experience and someone who is mentally ill are as follows:· A mystic, someone who has experienced God, is humbled by the experience.· This person can tell you about their experience over and over again. The story won’t change much as they tell you. This is called having a good ego and inner strength to explain the experience.· The person has/had a “life” before the experience, which in psychological terms is called “good pre-episode functioning”.· Mostly in telling you about spiritual experiences, the person describes something visual. (They can hear also but the preponderance of what my clients have described have been visual experiences.)· The spiritual experience usually gives an answer to the person having it.
The differences in mental illness, the main forms which are schizophrenia, paranoia and mania are:· Usually someone who is mentally ill is hallucinating.· The person is grandiose or inflated in bragging about what they are hearing or seeing. (Statistically mentally ill people usually hear voices or what they are describing. They can see things but don’t usually.) They are not humbled by what they are describing.· The person cannot repeat the same story coherently.· They have not had good pre-episode functioning.· They cannot move out of the hallucinatory state they are in unless they are medicated. Also, it’s important to note that someone who is mentally ill could also be having a spiritual experience.
It would take a team of professionals who understand both dynamics of psychotic and spiritual experiences to determine a treatment plan for this person. Only 35% of the Mental Health Professionals who were researched during my survey stated they were able to recognize the difference between spiritual and psychotic experiences. The low percentage shows that more training is needed in the area of recognizing the above differences.I have had clients often tell me that before they came to see me neither doctors, ministers or priests have not been able to help them understand these spiritual experiences. I believe that understanding and becoming educated regarding these vast ranges of experiences will be a movement for many professionals in the near future..
Spritual Psychology
Spiritual Psychology is based on the work of William James (1842-1910), Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961), and Abraham Maslow (1908-1970). These men began with religious experience, grew to Analytical Psychology, which encompasses the soul of each person, and then continued to attempt to fulfill one’s own unique potential. For discussion, please watch below.
Spiritual Experiences are unique and may sometimes seem “weird” experiences that 30-50% of the populations in the United States and England have had. They are states of insight into the depths of truths or knowing that go beyond one’s intellect. People usually have a difficult time giving an account in words and will begin telling you of such an experience by stating, “You’re going to think I’m crazy when I tell you this and I don’t have the words to explain it to you but…”.These experiences may come gradually or may occur abruptly and are many time triggered by a person being in crisis and calling out for help whether or not they believe in a God or a Higher Power.
The two most common types are mystical experience or near-death experience (NDE).Another type of spiritual crisis is a person in chronic grief or someone who is searching for more meaning or for the meaning or soul purpose of their life.
BIBLIOGRAPHIES: NEAR DEATH | DYSFUNCTIONAL FAMILY
Sane Hallucinations
SANE HALLUCINATIONS Mental health professionals need to know about the term Sane Hallucinations used in the 1880’s by colleagues of William James, sometimes called the Father of American Psychology. Unfortunately, America followed Sigmund Freud instead of Wm. James so sex is used to sell us everything from toothpaste to cars. In 1898 in Paris, France, at the International Congress of Experimental Psychology research began in 1894 in five countries: the United States, England, France, Spain and Russia which proved to be highly statistically significant that people zero to twelve hours after death of their loved ones saw them.
They usually appeared in early morning hours while the person was in bed. The deceased loved ones had come to say they were fine, that they were going “home”, not to worry about them and that they loved the person to whom they were appearing. They usually wore clothing that the person recognized as having seen them wear the last time they were with this person. These experiences were called Sane Hallucinations.
We need to bring this term back to the profession of psychology! Psychology today includes many models of psychotherapy that studies the mind and behaviors of people. In 1890, Wm. James defined psychology as “the description and explanation of states of consciousness and such” (1890, p. 1). It’s important to note that Wm. James and his colleagues studied techniques such as crystal gazing, automatic writing, clairvoyance, telekinesis, ghosts, apparitions, deathbed images, etc. The process of understanding spiritual experiences and states of consciousness in psychology is about maturing and integrating new and old frameworks with individuals connecting the personal with the transpersonal (going across the personal to a Higher Power or God) realm. We need to go beyond the mind and behaviors of people to their different states of consciousness. I believe, this is key to understanding what people are experiencing.
A Sheet of Plexi Glass Came Down on Me
“A SHEET OF PLEXIGLAS CAME DOWN IN FRONT OF ME Only it wasn’t a sheet of Plexiglas.” My very first client to tell me about a spiritual experience came to my office in the form of a 29 year-old man who had just left a meaningful relationship. He wanted my help in understanding why this relationship had failed. He was VERY nervous. Most first-time clients are nervous but his fear level was extremely high.
I asked him all types of questions to try to discover why he was so afraid but to no avail. When he returned for his second session, I put down my pad and told him, “You have as much fear today as you had during our first session. I feel there is something you are afraid to tell me; and, if this is so, I need you to explain it to me now.” He stated something had happened to him but his priest had told him never to tell anyone. He had been instructed to just “forget it.” I asked, “Can you forget it?” “No, he said.” I replied “Well, I hear a lot of very strange stories so I’d like to hear this one.”
He began by again stating that he lived with his parents and his father was an alcoholic. His father had never physically abused him in any way; however, they would fight verbally sometimes when his father had been drinking. One evening he came home and his father was in the kitchen and had been drinking. An argument ensued and his father picked up a carving knife from the table and threw it at his son. My new client stated, “When I tell you this you’re going to think I’m crazy, but something like a sheet of Plexiglas, but it wasn’t Plexiglas, came down in front of me and the knife bounced off of it.” I told him that I was qualified to decide whether he was crazy or not and that he wasn’t. I said that he had had a spiritual experience. I also said that it was obvious that his priest never had. But that the priest was trying to protect him from some people in society who would label this as a “crazy” story.
I said I would give him some information about spiritual experiences. He hadn’t come to me to learn about these and so I stated that someday when he was older he might want to look into the information about them. I suggested that he not talk to just anyone about these experiences but when he felt safe with some people he might meet in the future who had also had something “weird” (as they are explained in our society) happen to them that he could then share his story. I also told him that we could not count on this sheet of Plexiglas coming down again to protect him so I suggested he not fight with his father anymore when he was drinking. He was to ignore him and leave the room, which he agreed to do.
In my PhD research there were verbatim responses from eighteen attendees who had checked the box “Other types of spiritual experiences I and/or my clients have had.” One answer said, “Car hurled toward me out of control and I felt an invisible barrier. The car seemed to bounce off this barrier and then right itself.” When I spoke to this person during my telephone follow-up interview, I asked her about this experience. She said “Yes, it felt like a sheet of Plexiglas just came out of nowhere and stopped my car from going down the mountain.”
What Does Crazy Mean?
Not One But Three Guardian Angels
One day in August 2000, I was reading an article in the Two River Times, our local newspaper, a portion of which I have included below. “Have you felt this before? That time in your life when something miraculous happens? The event fills you with joy, hope and overwhelming happiness. You think you’re going to burst, an explosion from the chest outward, like some supernova erupting through your sternum, into the galaxy. Energy radiates from within, working its magic through your whole body. You’re overcome by the feeling that there is good in the world. That ‘wow’ moment consumes space and time. It lingers, and then it’s gone.
Some people experience it at the birth of their first child. Others grasp the feeling high atop a great personal achievement like finishing the New York marathon. For others, a ‘wow’ is simply witnessing a yellow-breasted finch’s flight from the flower garden. I got ‘wow-ed’ when I was twenty-four. My gas kitchen oven blew up in my face, leaving second and third degree burns on the better part of my visage. Clean and to the point, the blowout left me with no eyebrows, clump eyelashes and an unsolicited dermabrasion facial. It brought new meaning to the term ‘mug shot.’ My roommate of three days was overwhelmed, to say the least. My girlfriend cried. The doctor said never go out in the sun again without an SPF 500. Great. Just what a twenty-something, beach hopping maven wants to hear.I had just broken up with my boyfriend and my life was officially over. As I left the emergency room, the resident insisted I wear this giant, white sock over my head. ‘It’ll keep the infection down,’ he offered. The shroud was really to keep me from falling down. I almost passed out when I encountered my first mirror. I was gruesome. I still opted out of the sock, a more obvious if not dubious choice. My first ‘wow’ was a reversal. I imploded. My heart sank. Dread veiled my spirit. How was I going to get through this one? I thought. With silver oxide cradled in one hand and a couple Percasets in the other, I skulked home. My single-girl party ship was capsized. I was alone, swollen and lipless. I saw no sweet kisses in my future.I finally understood the true purpose for big, red, wax lips. I crawled into bed, leaving the light off.
My roommate did the best he could, half-joking he’d leave me lip balm and sunglasses for the morning. I cocked him a one-eyed ‘Good night,’ my stubbing lashes entangling themselves in mid-blink. I lay there wondering my next career move. Circus sideshow, a sales rep for some heavy-duty make-up line, spokesperson for Scab Pickers Anonymous. Was it worth sticking around for? Would I ever look the same?Then my real ‘wow’ moment hit me. For at the edge of my bed stood three guardian angels. Three, I was told; because I was such high maintenance they had to take shifts. I half-smirked at the thought of the poor soul appointed to my wee-hours-of-the-night crusades. Amazingly, none of them was scorched. Guess you guys missed the call about two hours ago, I thought. The tallest angel, shrouded in friar’s garb, told me to slow down. He said nothing, but I knew what he was saying without saying a word. Bizarre, I thought, this must be really good medication.The second and smaller angel simply looked on. His gaze ping-ponged fervently between the Robe and me. He must have been the one sleeping on the job. (I found out later, from my roommate’s description that I was blown out like a ten-year-old’s birthday cake. One minute I was on fire, the next, extinguished and slumped against the cabinets some ten feet across the room. Guess the middle guy had some lungs after all). Holding no grudges, I looked to the third.My little cherub propped his elbow on my bed, reached over, and touched my face. Supernova whooshed over me at warp speed. ‘We’ll keep an eye on you. It’s not your time.’ I grinned a sunburned smirk, my cracked lips split with relief. And they were gone. Was that all a high-grade pharmaceutical hallucination? Or did the drugs launch me into the astral plane? Could it have been my inner survival mechanism kicking in, keeping me from initiating the Big Dirt Nap on my own? Think what you may, but my ‘wow’ has kept me going ever since.
Life is filled with good and bad times. But knowing I’ve got an angelic A-Team of three in the wings, figuratively or otherwise, keeps me in good stead.Never underestimate a ‘wow’ moment or the power of symbolically-placed images. Real or not, they serve their purpose.” The author of this Red Bank column, Tara Collins, had her email at the end of this story and asked for comments. I wrote her telling her about spiritual experiences which sometimes happen when someone is desperate and is in a crisis in their life. I said that I definitely thought her angel story was a spiritual experience.Here is what Tara wrote a couple of weeks later in her next column: “Funny how two people can have totally different reactions to a story. In my column on August 24th, I described one of many ‘wow’ moments I’ve experienced over the years. My father e-mailed me the week after the oven story and told me how frightening it was. Frightening? That surely wasn’t my intention. But from a father’s perspective, no doubt, his thought of losing his only daughter in a fiery blaze not linked with a plane crash could surely be perceived as frightening.
I assured him it was better for me to have told him fourteen years after the fact than the day it happened. He would have MADE me get on a plane that day and fly home with the ‘sock’ over my head. I would have preferred to go down in a fiery blaze.I now chalk that story up to one of those Tijuana jail stories; some things are better left unsaid to a parent until WAY after the fact. Two days later, I got an email from Karen Herrick. She was enthralled with my story; no mention of ‘frightened,’ scared or even mildly spooked.’ She was, however, surprised at my willingness to share such an intimate moment. Geez, I had briefly thought about that one. But then I decided, ‘Eh, you all think I’m crazy (Here’s that word again!) anyway, so why not?’ She wanted to talk. Herrick is a social worker, psychotherapist and founder of the Center for Children of Alcoholics on Broad Street, who is also working on her doctoral thesis. A bit skeptical, I considered my options. I wondered if I wouldn’t walk out of our meeting with a pack of Paxil in one hand and a script for a frontal lobotomy in the other. She assured me I was not crazy, at least on the seeing angel’s part.We met over lunch at Juanito’s on Monmouth Street. The extra-hot hot sauce masked my sweaty brow. Her doctoral topic? Near-death and spiritual encounters. Wow. Were those angels trying to tell me their own little Tijuana story? We talked about the work of Raymond Moody, the connectedness of the world and our place in it. Apparently, people who have these experiences can go one of two ways. They either become very at ease and trusting with life and what it offers. Or they become very distraught with the incongruity of what they’ve seen vs. what they believe and try very hard to ‘forget’ which only increases their anxiety in life.
Confronted with that celestial head-trip, I found the Paxil and lobotomy much less frightening.After talking, I realized that many people have these experiences but never talk about them. They fear being misunderstood, deemed crazy or too frightened to speak of the event. I found Herrick understanding, sane and willing to listen to the stories I had.
”WHAT DOES “CRAZY” MEAN? Usually when people tell me of a spiritual experience, they’ll start by saying, “I don’t have the words to describe this to you,” or “You’re going to think I’m crazy when I tell you this, but…” And then they tell me what happened to them. One definition of the word crazy is being of unsound mind or being mentally imbalanced, deranged or insane. When I was married to my alcoholic husband, the more emotions I showed outwardly, the more he called me crazy. The more he called me this, the more I felt crazy because I was the only one in the relationship admitting to feeling anything.
Many times people who come to me who are considered to be the crazy one in the family are just having a lot of feelings and are showing them outwardly. They might also feel crazy because of something that has happened to them like the spiritual experience above.
Basically the differences between someone who is having a spiritual experience and someone who is mentally ill are as follows:· A mystic, someone who has experienced God, is humbled by the experience.· This person can tell you about their experience over and over again. The story won’t change much as they tell you. This is called having a good ego and inner strength to explain the experience.· The person has/had a “life” before the experience, which in psychological terms is called “good pre-episode functioning”.· Mostly in telling you about spiritual experiences, the person describes something visual. (They can hear also but the preponderance of what my clients have described have been visual experiences.)· The spiritual experience usually gives an answer to the person having it.
In Tara’s case, it helped her handle that crisis of being burned and other rough periods in her life knowing that her angels were there watching out for her.
The differences in mental illness, the main forms which are schizophrenia, paranoia and mania are:· Usually someone who is mentally ill is hallucinating.· The person is grandiose or inflated in bragging about what they are hearing or seeing. (Statistically mentally ill people usually hear voices or what they are describing. They can see things but don’t usually.) They are not humbled by what they are describing.· The person cannot repeat the same story coherently.· They have not had good pre-episode functioning.· They cannot move out of the hallucinatory state they are in unless they are medicated.Also, it’s important to note that someone who is mentally ill could also be having a spiritual experience. It would take a team of professionals who understand both dynamics of psychotic and spiritual experiences to determine a treatment plan for this person.
Only 35% of the Mental Health Professionals who were researched during Dr. Herricks' survey stated they were able to recognize the difference between spiritual and psychotic experiences. The low percentage shows that more training is needed in the area of recognizing the above differences.I have had clients often tell me that before they came to see me neither doctors, ministers or priests have not been able to help them understand these spiritual experiences. I believe that understanding and becoming educated regarding these vast ranges of experiences will be a movement for many professionals in the near future.
BINGE WATCH KAREN TV
due to living with an alcoholic?
If so, please contact Karen
(732) 530-8513
karen@karenherrick.com
Rev. Karen E. Herrick, PhD
(732) 530-8513 | karen@karenherrick.com
HOME | BIO | SPIRITUALITY | ALCOHOLISM & HELP | BOOKS | VIDEOS
Copyright © 1995-2021 Rev. Karen E. Herrick PhD | Website Credit: EMB