Mental Health and Spiritual Voids

[catherine]

I find this to be a pretty provocative piece about how our culture has pretty much voided the potential for filling the holes in our souls. I also like the reference to Joseph Campbell (The Hero With A Thousand Faces).


https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/19/opinion/mental-health-ptsd-community.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage

I think the culture has missed the boat on recognizing and addressing our spiritual needs, and I don't mean that from a religious POV. We can talk about gun control, and DSM codes, but with all the war on drugs and mental health resources, we don't seem to be fixing the problem.

[Tybee]

I guess I reached my limit on free articles, so won't let me past firewall. It seems to be by David Brooks, that's all I got?

[catherine]

Bummer. Yes--by David Brooks. Here are some excerpts

Wherever Americans gather and try to help each other on any deep level, they confront levels of trauma that their training has often not prepared them for.

Our society has tried to medicalize trauma. We call it PTSD and regard it as an individual illness that can be treated with medications. But it’s increasingly clear that trauma is a moral and spiritual issue as much as a psychological or chemical one. Wherever there is trauma, there has been betrayal, an abuse of authority, a moral injury.

Medication can rebalance chemicals in the brain, but it can’t heal the inner self. People who have suffered a trauma — whether it’s a sexual assault at work or repeated beatings at home — find that their identity formation has been interrupted and fragmented. Time doesn’t flow from one day to the next but circles backward to the bad event.

Tick points out that most ancient cultures put returning soldiers through purification rituals. The men came back from battle and the terrible things they had done there, and they were given a chance to cleanse, purify and rejoin the community. The community would take possession of the guilt the soldiers may have felt for the things they had to do on its behalf.

The Tohono O’odham, a Native American people from the Sonoran Desert, once practiced a 16-day purification ceremony.

These ceremonies had, Tick writes, what most rites of passage have: a sacred space, training by the elders, ordeals that prepare and test the initiate, rituals that symbolize the transformation taking place. After the cleansing, the blood-soaked soldier was now known as a warrior, a positive leader in the community.

I wish our culture had many more rites of passage, communal moments when we celebrated a moral transition. There could be a communitywide rite of passage for people coming out of prison, for forgiveness of a personal wrong, for people who felt they had come out the other side of trauma and abuse. There’d be a marriage ceremony of sorts to mark the moment when a young person found the vocation he or she would dedicate life to.

[Zoe Girl]

I really like that, I meditate with people who are in recovery from addiction and see how the community is essential to them. Having a place where they can reclaim a spirituality is so valuable, and it is just as valuable to me to be part of it. I have been diagnosed with a brain based illness and some PTSD, I don't like the more isolating parts of that. Putting me in a box on the outside of the 'healthier' people. I feel that the super sensitive people are part of processing this for others (secondary trauma of first responders, teachers, etc) but instead of treating them separately it would be interesting to treat this communally, hmm.

[JaneV2.0]

There is a lot of merit in the idea of treating these conditions with purification rituals.

[Teacher Terry]

There is real merit in what he says. One of the problems with our present wars is that so many soldiers are coming back with head injuries because of all the explosions. People really don’t understand invisible disabilities and they are not getting the help they need on any level.

[Tybee]

Very true, but I wish Brooks would talk about sexual assault and PTSD, instead of more about warriors needing rituals to get over their trauma.
Here is an interesting quotation from the ncbi (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2323517/):

Go to: (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2323517/#)
POSTTRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDERThe US National Comorbidity Survey Report estimates the lifetime prevalence of PTSD among North Americans to be 7.8% (9 (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2323517/#b9-mjm0902p111)). The lifetime prevalence of PTSD for women who have been sexually assaulted is 50% (10 (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2323517/#b10-mjm0902p111)). Moreover, sexual assault is the most frequent cause of PTSD in women, with one study reporting that 94% of women experienced PTSD symptoms during the first two weeks after an assault (

This really occurred to me reading the excerpt. Where is the ritual for those of us who have been assaulted? The Kavanaugh hearings were immensely triggering for many victims. Where is the purification ritual for the Kavanaugh hearings?

I am not trying to make this political. I do want to point out that women are ignored so often in this kind of stentorian "Bowling Alone" kind of commentary. . . as though men's experience is the one that matters. . .

[catherine]

Very true, but I wish Brooks would talk about sexual assault and PTSD, instead of more about warriors needing rituals to get over their trauma.
Here is an interesting quotation from the ncbi (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2323517/):

Go to: (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2323517/#)
POSTTRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDERThe US National Comorbidity Survey Report estimates the lifetime prevalence of PTSD among North Americans to be 7.8% (9 (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2323517/#b9-mjm0902p111)). The lifetime prevalence of PTSD for women who have been sexually assaulted is 50% (10 (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2323517/#b10-mjm0902p111)). Moreover, sexual assault is the most frequent cause of PTSD in women, with one study reporting that 94% of women experienced PTSD symptoms during the first two weeks after an assault (

This really occurred to me reading the excerpt. Where is the ritual for those of us who have been assaulted? The Kavanaugh hearings were immensely triggering for many victims. Where is the purification ritual for the Kavanaugh hearings?

I am not trying to make this political. I do want to point out that women are ignored so often in this kind of stentorian "Bowling Alone" kind of commentary. . . as though men's experience is the one that matters. . .

You're absolutely right.. He paid lip service to assault in women in a part of the article I didn't excerpt, but yes, by and large, it's focused on male trauma, "Iron John" types of issues.

[bae]

There is a lot of merit in the idea of treating these conditions with purification rituals.

My department has a very active program of engaging in essentially this after every event that is...unpleasant. It really helps.

[nswef]

It seems so logical. I see the lack of support for assault survivors and hope with the me too movement that will change. We send enlistees off to weeks of training but when they come back ship them home with nothing...why not 6 weeks of "purification"- and the same kinds of places for assault victims. But the cost.....actually the choices made on how to use money-clearly support is not valued.

[iris lilies]

It seems so logical. I see the lack of support for assault survivors and hope with the me too movement that will change. We send enlistees off to weeks of training but when they come back ship them home with nothing...why not 6 weeks of "purification"- and the same kinds of places for assault victims. But the cost.....actually the choices made on how to use money-clearly support is not valued.

Where are you looking to see the “lack of support for assault victims?”

This seems an overly broad conclusion as in “there are no support survices.” Is that what you mean? Depending on what you expect to see when you look and where you are look, I woild argue that you are wrong. But certainly “support” in the form of government funded social/medical services vary from place to place.

Why can’t the thoughts in David Brooks’ piece be extrapolated to include all survivors of trauma? Does it really lessen his message by using only a specific group as his referance? If this written piece bothers you all so much because it seems to ignore other groups, why dont you all write your own articles about your chosen groups, gather resources to design and carry out the purification rituals, do the work?

My neighborhood sponsored, for several years, victim support work for people who were assaulted within our neighborhood boundaries. It isnt rocket science. With training from our local law enforcement department (that is the government, you know) women in our neighborhood followed up with victims. I was not one of those do-gooders because that isnt my jam, but it I think it was good use of oir neighborhood resources. One practical aspect of the program was to assist victims in court appearances where we made sure they had transportation to court and at least one person to go with them, and often victim support representatives got neighbors to show up to the hearing as well.

[Yppej]

I like "Iyanla Fix My Life" because she gets to root traumas and sometimes offers healing rituals.

[nswef]

IL, Your neighborhood sponsored group sounds like what is needed. Our local domestic violence organization is effective. My not seeing support for assault victims is more not seeing "organized groups" or "well advertised groups". Many assaults go unreported due to that lack of support.

[Rogar]

I guess I reached my limit on free articles, so won't let me past firewall. It seems to be by David Brooks, that's all I got?

At least on my devices I can refresh my browser and delete my browsing history and it seems to reset the number articles viewed back to zero for the NYT and other publications that have article limits. It's probably not a bad thing to do occasionally anyway.

I tend to think that there has been a falling out of church going organized religion that at one time gave people spiritual comfort. As such they've also discounted the value of searching for or believing in a higher source of guidance, either within one's self or some sort of external higher being. I can find spiritual comfort that is exclusive of any formal organization, but it doesn't come without searching and trying to find what works.

[Tybee]

thanks, Roger, I just did that, and it worked, for now at least!