Practical Approaches to Spirituality and Schizophrenia Mark Ragins, - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Practical Approaches to Spirituality and Schizophrenia

Mark Ragins, MD Medical Director MHALA Village Integrated Service Agency

www.mhavillage.squarespace.com mragins@mhala.org

Helping Relationships

• 1. Trust
• 2. Shared story
• 3. Shared plan

Too often, when we’re working with someone who has a spiritual understanding of what’s happening to them, we don’t “meet them where they’re at” and successfully engage them

Shared Spiritual Stories

• Disconnected from God
• “Psychotics drown in the same deep waters that mystics swim

gracefully in”

• Tapped into spiritual levels of awareness or “spiritual circuitry”

without the strength to handle it and became overwhelmed

• Part of larger spiritual battle with important role
• Demons feeding off of negativity
• Childhood openness to spiritual abilities and experiences that

weren’t mentored into adulthood

• Attacked spiritually by someone with power
• Personal crisis became spiritual crisis

Worldwide people with spiritual explanations for their conditions do better than those with psychiatric explanations

Shared Spiritual Goals

• Balance spiritual, emotional, and material levels
• f life – “a state of deep spiritual meditation may

not be the safest way to cross a crowded street”

• Strengthen foundation to support high levels of

spiritual growth – e.g. better mental functioning, emotional balance, congregation, knowledge, modesty, moral behavior

• Strengthen mind or personal boundaries to

avoid being overwhelmed

Levels of Helping

1) Intellectual: Making diagnosis, giving medications, case management, skills training, cognitive therapies, psychoeducation, etc. This requires trust in professional expertise and giving people enough space to learn at their own pace instead of being force fed at

• ur pace.

2) Emotional: compassion, empathy, believing in them, giving hope, caring, emotional healing, love, forgiveness, etc. This requires trust in personal caring and investment and welcoming their emotions knowing full well they may change us. 3) Spiritual: being “an angel,” God (or Christ)working through you, a “miracle” happened, “energetic healing,” praying for them, blessing, witnessing, communion, etc. This requires shared trust in power above us all, “faith”, and having enough acceptance to keep our will out of it so “God’s will be done”.

Spiritual Healing

When we’re hurt our universal emotional response is to seek revenge, but that is virtually never healing (but it might make them stop). What works?

• Acknowledgement of pain and suffering by

perpetrator and sharing it

• Cleansing / Acceptance
• Turning it over to spiritual power for forgiveness
• Personal forgiveness

Spirituality and Recovery

• Hope – pray for help for yourself, God (or karma)

will make it right, you’re not alone / God is with you

• Empowerment – God give me the strength, God

doesn’t make garbage / “in the image of God”, turning over life to “higher power”

• Responsibility – moral duty, do the right thing
• Meaningful roles – you’ve been put here for a

reason, obligation to serve others and do God’s work, pray for others

Finding the Blessing

• I wouldn’t wish it on anyone, but I’m

grateful because…

• I have a gift from my wound
• I wouldn’t be who I am today without

having gone through that suffering

• There is a reason and a meaning for my

suffering

• It has opened my heart and brought me

closer to God

THANK YOU!

To get a copy of my book A Roa

• ad t o
• Recov
• very

download at www.mhavillage.squarespace.com and click on “dr. mark’s writings”

…where you will find more of Dr. Mark’s articles on recovery,

• r contact me at

Mark Ragins, MD mragins@mhala.org 562-437-6717 x275

for more recovery oriented training, consultation and workforce development

• pportunities from Mental Health America of Los Angeles: