Tag Archives: Psychosis

Have you seen the unseen other?

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Ghost

Unseen other.
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

Have you seen the unseen other?

By David Joel Miller, MS, Licensed Therapist & Counselor.

Have you ever felt the presence of someone you couldn’t see?

I’ve recently came across an interesting podcast from the British psychological society about just this topic. Dr. Jon Sutton, editor of The Psychologist magazine, talks to Dr. Ben Alderson-Day, an Associate Professor at Durham University who has written a book about this kind of experience.

Experiencing the feeling that there was someone close by that you could not see is a relatively common phenomenon. This kind of experience has been described a lot by people who are in conditions of sensory deprivation. Skiing through a blinding snowstorm requires using senses other than vision to navigate. People who dive in darkened caves may experience things beyond the range of human sight.

We’re pretty confident that just because I don’t see a person hiding in the darkness in the alley doesn’t mean they’re not there. But how do we explain the times when I sense someone there who later jumps out at me?

Lack of perception doesn’t equal lack of existence.

When the idea of germs was first presented, people laughed at the possibility of tiny creatures we couldn’t see. Now that we have microscopes, a whole new universe of possibilities is visible. We also know that X-rays can pass through the body totally unnoticed. Just because I can’t see them doesn’t mean X-rays don’t exist.

In the early days of psychology and psychological research, a lot of attention was paid to the boundary between what we can perceive via the senses and what we might experience in the subconscious or unconscious realm.

Not everyone who looks at a painting or landscape sees the same details. Perceiving something others don’t experience doesn’t necessarily mean you have a mental disorder. Is it possible that some people perceive phenomena not readily available to our senses?

Altered perception, including hallucinations, doesn’t equal psychosis.

In the early part of my career, I worked in a locked psychiatric facility. In learning to diagnose, we had to pay a lot of attention to the differences between relatively normal perception and something that might indicate psychosis. Not everyone who sees something hears something, smell something, and so on has a diagnosable mental illness.

For most of these iffy experiences, we can come up with plausible explanations.

It’s common for people to believe that they hear someone calling their name, but when they look, no one is there. We dismissed this with the explanation that when the brain hears sounds, it can’t identify it makes them into a familiar word, and nothing is more familiar than your own name.

Should all religious experiences be dismissed as examples of psychosis?

There’s an exception in the diagnostic manual for hearing and seeing things in the context of a religious experience that we generally ignore. If you’re a Catholic and believe you have seen the Virgin Mary or some other Saint, That shouldn’t count towards a diagnosis of psychosis. But if Mary tells you to go to Walmart, fill up your shopping cart, and it’s all free, we believe that is moved from a religious experience into a delusion.

Should you ever trust your gut?

There’s a lot of good evidence that you should trust your gut. When you meet a new person, if you get an uneasy feeling, you probably should walk away. Plenty of advice tells you that you should trust your “felt sense” or intuition. There’s a lot of literature devoted to the idea that you can develop your intuition. Highly creative people, both in the arts and the sciences, often credit their advances to intuition. Since we can’t readily see intuition, it’s easy to be skeptical. But if you’ve ever had an experience where you’ve trusted your intuition, and you turned out to be right, you have to wonder if that was more than just a chance coincidence.

It’s important to get to know yourself, and one model of personality that’s often used is the Myers-Briggs personality inventory. Intuition is one of the personality characteristics that’s been widely studied. I don’t think anybody would believe that people who are high in intuition are inherently mentally ill.

Is there a difference between intuition and psychic abilities?

As much as modern psychology has endorsed the idea of intuition, its role in creating personality, and its value in making decisions, it’s equally likely that modern science will laugh at the existence of psychic abilities. Of course, not everybody defines intuition or psychic abilities in the same way. People who were high in intuition as very young children and have gone on to develop that as a part of their personality are very likely to think of themselves as having some sort of psychic abilities.

Why my sudden interest in intuition and psychic abilities?

Currently, I’m working on writing a series of books featuring Nancy Nusbaum, a character from one of my published novels. Nancy majored in journalism in college, but the only field placement she could find was writing articles for the Paranormal News. As part of her job, Nancy must investigate unusual, potentially paranormal events. Her series of adventures, vaguely reminiscent of the X-Files, will allow me to explore this area of what is normal, what is paranormal, and the distinction between intuition and psychic abilities.

Stay tuned for some blog posts about personality factors and getting to know yourself. If you’d like to read more about my fiction writing career and hear about the release of Nancy Nusbaum novels, check out my writing blog davidjoelmillerwriter.com

Does David Joel Miller see clients for counseling and coaching?

Yes, I do. I can see private pay clients if they live in California, where I am licensed. If you’re interested in information about that, please email me or use the contact me form.

Staying in touch with David Joel Miller.

Want the latest blog posts as they publish? Subscribe to this blog.

For more information about my writing journey, my books, and other creative activities, please subscribe to my blog at davidjoelmillerwriter.com

Seven David Joel Miller Books are available on Amazon now! And more are on the way.

For more about my books, please visit my Amazon Author Page – David Joel Miller

For information about my work in mental health, substance abuse, and having a happy life, please check out counselorssoapbox.com

For videos, see: Counselorssoapbox YouTube Video Channel

Emotional problem or mental illness

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By David Joel Miller, MS, Licensed Therapist & Licensed Counselor.

Confused brain

Mental illness.
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

What is the difference between an emotional problem and a mental illness?

Emotions and mental illness Is there really a difference?

Back in the Freudian days, they tended to think that there were two kinds of problems, Neurosis and Psychosis. Those with Neurosis had problems of living; they were too sad, too anxious, or worried too much. Those with psychosis were clearly mentally ill. The heard voices saw things did things that looked irrational. We sent them away to the sanitarium, now called the state hospital. We also tended to mix the mentally ill in with those with an intellectual disability.

Then this nice neat system began to crumble.

Medication can reduce the symptoms of “mental illness.”

First, they discovered a medication that stopped or reduced the voices and other hallucinations. If a med could shut off voices, was the person with a psychotic disorder really “crazy” or did they have a treatable illness?

Then we found that voices were not an all or nothing phenomenon. They did not happen all the time to some of the people who had them. Sometimes hearing voices happen to the “normal” people. Very depressed people might hear voices sometimes and not others. Talk with them, watch their depression recede and the voices shut up.

Also, we found that most teenagers hear voices now and then. You hear a sound; do not know what it is and the brain interprets it as something you know well, like your own name.

Additionally, a lot of otherwise normal people hear angels or a religious figure; some people see or hear loved ones who have died. If it was a religious vision we were reluctant to call that psychosis.

The walls between emotional problems and mental illness began to get thin. In places, we thought we saw people crawl through the cracks in our system designed to keep the normal’s in one place and the mentally ill in the other places. We started calling those that crawled through the fence “borderlines” and other “personality disorders” because they seemed to live in the land between normal and not normal.

Recovery moments happen.

Then came various assorted recovery movements. There was recovery from alcoholism, addiction, and gambling. There was also the consumer movement and then we saw that people with serious and persistent mental illness can and do recover.

People, prominent, important people, came forward and talked about their struggles with mental illness and their own very personal stories of recovery.

The newest trend is to talk in terms of wellness and recovery. That life’s emotional problems are on a continuum. You may have times when you are stressed or depressed and your emotions get out of control. There are other times that your emotions are on a par with the best of them.

Acute versus chronic mental illnesses.

Clearly, for some people, life is more challenging than others. Some people have hereditary predispositions to having more of one problem or another. Some people have multiple problems to deal with. Some people’s problems are chronic and other people’s problems may get better or worse and then better again.

Some of those conditions we have come to call “mental illnesses” have an underlying structural difference in the brain. Some emotional problems are the result of difficult experiences in life. The brain rewires itself based on experiences. Not everyone has or should have all the same skills or the same challenges.

What we continue to see is that these things that bring the majority of people for mental health treatment are not those long-term underlying differences. What most trips folks up are the everyday problems of living, the unemployment, the relationship conflicts, and the times of loneliness.

The line between those with a serious and persistent mental illness and those with a current emotional problem is becoming harder to find.

The truth is that everyone has times of emotional difficulties and everyone can recover and have a happier, better life.

Staying connected with David Joel Miller

Seven David Joel Miller Books are available now!

My newest book is now available. It was my opportunity to try on a new genre. I’ve been working on this book for several years, but now seem like the right time to publish it.

Story Bureau.

Story Bureau is a thrilling Dystopian Post-Apocalyptic adventure in the Surviving the Apocalypse series.

Baldwin struggles to survive life in a post-apocalyptic world where the government controls everything.

As society collapses and his family gets plunged into poverty, Baldwin takes a job in the capital city, working for a government agency called the Story Bureau. He discovers the Story Bureau is not a benign news outlet but a sinister government plot to manipulate society.

Bumps on the Road of Life. Whether you struggle with anxiety, depression, low motivation, or addiction, you can recover. Bumps on the Road of Life is the story of how people get off track and how to get your life out of the ditch.

Dark Family Secrets: Doris wants to get her life back, but small-town prejudice could shatter her dreams.

Casino Robbery Arthur Mitchell escapes the trauma of watching his girlfriend die. But the killers know he’s a witness and want him dead.

Planned Accidents  The second Arthur Mitchell and Plutus mystery.

Letters from the Dead: The third in the Arthur Mitchell mystery series.

What would you do if you found a letter to a detective describing a crime and you knew the writer and detective were dead, and you could be next?

Sasquatch. Three things about us, you should know. One, we have seen the past. Two, we’re trapped there. Three, I don’t know if we’ll ever get back to our own time.

For these and my upcoming books; please visit my Author Page – David Joel Miller

Want the latest blog posts as they publish? Subscribe to this blog.

For videos, see: Counselorssoapbox YouTube Video Channel

Where have all the neurotics gone? – Looking for your neurosis?

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By David Joel Miller, MS, Licensed Therapist & Licensed Counselor.

Confused brain

Mental illness.
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

Do people still get treated for being neurotic?

On my bookshelves are a whole lot of older books on mental health and mental illness. Many of them talk about neurosis. A couple even has the word Neurotic or neuroses in the title. I mentioned “Be glad you are Neurotic,” by Bisch in a previous post. With all the literature on Neuroses, where have all the neurotics gone?

Neurosis was a pretty inclusive term. In the older psychological literature, you could get three diagnoses, Neurosis, psychosis and that group that seemed to move back and forth across the line got called “Borderline” because they appeared to live at the border between Psychosis and Neurosis.

Today our understanding of the possible mental illnesses is getting much more complicated. For example, one new piece of research from the University of Buffalo seems to suggest to me that over a hundred different genes may be causing schizophrenia because of their effect on one structure in the brain. Eventually, we may diagnose and or treat dozens or even hundreds of different types of psychoses.

The word Neurosis has leaked from psychiatry into the popular vocabulary. It like so many other words mean different things to different people.

Some dictionary definitions include “relating to, involving, affected by, or characteristic of a mild psychiatric disorder characterized by depression, anxiety, or hypochondria” and “overanxious, oversensitive, or obsessive about everyday things.”

So by this definition of neurosis, most of the things that today we break out into anxiety, mood disorders, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and a few other disorders would all be thrown into the category neuroses.

Neuroses have been completely dropped from modern psychiatric diagnosis, largely because neuroses were based on theories of what is going on inside the person like dreams and the unconscious. The current preference is to primarily use symptoms that are visible to others or can be described by the client, like lack of sleep, loss of pleasure, or similar characteristics as the basis of diagnosis.

This older term, neurosis, also included most of the currently recognized personality disorders.

One effect of this move from the simple classifications system, you either had a psychosis or a neurosis, has been that people with many symptoms now may get a number of diagnoses.

Neurosis used to include symptoms of both depression and anxiety. Now that the two are separated and further separated into many types of anxiety disorders and mood disorders, many people qualify for both a depressive diagnosis and an anxiety diagnosis. The overlap is so large that a combined depression and anxiety disorder was considered for the new DSM-5. (It did not become a separate diagnosis but there are specifiers for this.)

All the neurotics now get to have dozens or more of new diseases and disorders that are the result of refining our system of classification rather than in any real change in human behavior or the way in which mental illnesses affect people.

So you can go on feeling you are neurotic if you chose. You can say others are acting neurotic, but the diagnoses that the clinician will give you will have one of the newer disorder names.

Photo courtesy of Wikipedia

Staying connected with David Joel Miller

Seven David Joel Miller Books are available now!

My newest book is now available. It was my opportunity to try on a new genre. I’ve been working on this book for several years, but now seem like the right time to publish it.

Story Bureau.

Story Bureau is a thrilling Dystopian Post-Apocalyptic adventure in the Surviving the Apocalypse series.

Baldwin struggles to survive life in a post-apocalyptic world where the government controls everything.

As society collapses and his family gets plunged into poverty, Baldwin takes a job in the capital city, working for a government agency called the Story Bureau. He discovers the Story Bureau is not a benign news outlet but a sinister government plot to manipulate society.

Bumps on the Road of Life. Whether you struggle with anxiety, depression, low motivation, or addiction, you can recover. Bumps on the Road of Life is the story of how people get off track and how to get your life out of the ditch.

Dark Family Secrets: Doris wants to get her life back, but small-town prejudice could shatter her dreams.

Casino Robbery Arthur Mitchell escapes the trauma of watching his girlfriend die. But the killers know he’s a witness and want him dead.

Planned Accidents  The second Arthur Mitchell and Plutus mystery.

Letters from the Dead: The third in the Arthur Mitchell mystery series.

What would you do if you found a letter to a detective describing a crime and you knew the writer and detective were dead, and you could be next?

Sasquatch. Three things about us, you should know. One, we have seen the past. Two, we’re trapped there. Three, I don’t know if we’ll ever get back to our own time.

For these and my upcoming books; please visit my Author Page – David Joel Miller

Want the latest blog posts as they publish? Subscribe to this blog.

For videos, see: Counselorssoapbox YouTube Video Channel