Gary Nixon

Spider in a Jar: Women Who Have Recovered from Psychosis and Their Experience of the Mental Health Care System

A growing body of literature has documented considerable dissatisfaction with the mental health care system among people who use mental health services. This article adds to this literature by reporting on the results of qualitative interviews done with 18 women who had recovered from some form of transformative psychotic experience and were willing to share their experiences with the mental health care system. The participants unanimously felt that their experiences with the mental health system were very negative and detrimental to their overall healing and recovery process. Four main themes emerged from the qualitative analysis of the interview transcripts: (1) “the label factory,” which described the capricious and destructive nature of the psychiatric diagnoses they received; (2) “invalidated and unheard,” which described how little the women’s voices seemed to matter to the mental health care professionals caring for them; (3) “violence and violations,” which described the loss of free will and dignity the women experienced during inpatient psychiatric hospitalizations; and (4) “smashing the jar,” which described the hopes and dreams these women had for changing the way people receive mental health care. The implications of these findings for mental health practice are discussed.

Psychosis and transformation: A phenomenological inquiry

Conventional views towards psychosis typically portray psychosis as an illness of the brain with a generally poor prognosis, even if treated with antipsychotics. However, there is a growing body of literature which presents an alternative view of psychosis, whereby people are not only able to recover from psychosis, but can also experience transformative and/or spiritual growth through psychosis. To learn more about the transformative potential of psychotic experiences, a phenomenological approach was used to research the experiences of six people who self-identified as having benefited from psychosis in a spiritual and/or transformative manner. Keys themes emerging from interviews with these six individuals included in the pre-psychosis phase “childhood foreshadowing” and “negative childhood events,” and in the psychosis phase, “sudden psychosis,” “psychic/intuitiveness and unusual visual experiences,” “comprised day-to-day functioning,” “experiences of dying,” and “communication with god.” Four themes made up the transformation of psychosis phase including “detachment and mindfulness,” “accepting the dissolution of time into now,” “embracing a spiritual pathway,”“ and ”re-alignment of career path.“ Overall, the results suggest that at least for some individuals, the experience of psychosis can be an important catalyst for spiritual and personally transformative growth.

Recovery from Psychosis: A Phenomenological Inquiry.

While mainstream psychiatry tends to view psychosis as an enduring and chronic condition, there is growing interest in the possibility of recovery from psychosis. A phenomenological research method was utilized in interviewing 17 individuals who all self-identified as being in recovery from psychosis. The research question was, “What was the lived experience of having a psychosis episode and now being in recovery?” Through thematic analysis, the authors found four major themes and seven subthemes that described the experience of recovery from psychosis. The four major themes included: (i) pre-psychosis childhood traumatic experiences, (ii) the descent into psychosis, (iii) paths to recovery, and (iv) post-recovery challenges. These findings suggest both some potential pathways and barriers toward recovery and transformation from psychosis.

Female Gambling, Trauma, and the Not Good Enough Self: An Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis

A gap exists within current literature regarding understanding the role that trauma may play in the initiation, development, and progression of female problem and pathological gambling. The purpose of this study is to further illustrate the relationship between trauma and the development problem and pathological gambling by investigating the lived experiences of six women who self-report having a history of trauma and problem with gambling. An interpretive phenomenological analysis (IPA) methodology was applied in the research process in which six women share their life journey through the progression of their gambling addiction. Thematic analysis constructed into 5 themes illustrates a link between the role of trauma in the development and perpetuation of problem and pathological gambling, with female participants progressing through a series of experienced stages involving the development of the not good enough self, seduction & intoxication with gambling, opening the doorway to oblivion through gambling, trauma and the ties that bind, and culminating in gambling becoming trauma. Finally the implications of these findings towards the understanding and treatment of problem and pathological gambling by health care practitioners is discussed.

An Insider's Look into the Process of Recovering from Pathological Gambling Disorder: An Existential Phenomenological Inquiry

An existential phenomenological method of study was implemented to better understand the recovery process of 11 pathological gamblers. After analysis, seven recovery themes were generated, which brought to light that recovery from pathological gambling may take place over several years and cycle through successive stages. These stages demonstrate and suggest that recovering from pathological gambling is more cyclical and spiral in nature as opposed to being linear, and is reflective of a continuous, ever evolving process. Specifically, recovering from pathological gambling may take place over several years and cycle through stages of heavy gaming, periods of abstinence, relapse, and re-commitment to recovery, with the recovering gambler gradually moving towards stability through embracing the flow of life and a new identity, and over time finding meaning through extending hope to other troubled gamblers.

Beyond “Dry Drunkenness”: Facilitating Second Stage Recovery Using Wilber’s “Spectrum of Consciousness” Developmental Model

ABSTRACT The usefulness of Wilbers “Spectrum of Consciousness” developmental model in the treatment of substance abuse is demonstrated by a case study that illustrates how underlying emotional pain and intimacy issues can be worked through in the counselling process with a client during the second stage of recovery from addiction. Wilbers model allows for narcissistic, critical self, social, identity, intimacy, existential, and psycho-spiritual issues to be integrated into the counselling process for long-term recovery. This model provides social workers and addictions counselors with a useful map in embracing client recovery.

The Counterfeit Hero’s Journey of the Pathological Gambler: A Phenomenological Hermeneutics Investigation

This research study sought to interpret and strove toward understanding the lived experience of 13 pathological gambler from an archetypal–mythic perspective. Through a phenomenological hermeneutics inquiry, 11 clusters of themes were illuminated. These themes highlighted a three stage mythical journey that elucidated how gambling began as regular pastime, but ended in failure in regards to becoming extraordinary and financially secure. Thus, resulting in extreme gambling behaviors such as psychological distress, family disintegration, and self-effacement. Clinical implications from this inquiry suggest that understanding pathological gambling from a archetypal–mythical perspective not only encapsulates our current paradiagms of thought about gambling, but may offer a more a holistic approach to understanding the pathological gambler as it sets its theoretical tenets in a cultural, historical, and psychosocial world.

The greater of two evils? How people with transformative psychotic experiences view psychotropic medications.

This article describes the results of a qualitative study with 22 participants who were originally interviewed about their experiences of the potentially transformational nature of psychotic episodes. During the interviews, however, the participants spontaneously described their experiences with taking psychotropic medications (particularly antipsychotics). Participants fell into three general groups in terms of their attitudes towards psychotropic medications: (a) those who complied with psychotropic use but felt that such use had considerable limitations, (b) those who felt that psychotropics should be used only in crisis situations, and (c) those who felt that the use of psychotropics was never justified. Overall, the majority of participants had very negative experiences with psychotropic medications, and this article presents a number of themes describing how participants felt that psychotropic medications caused them harm physically, cognitively, emotionally, and spiritually—and interfered with their eventual recovery from psychosis. Finally, this article presents themes that summarize how participants felt that mental health professionals contributed to their negative views toward taking psychotropic drugs.

Moving Beyond Residential School Trauma Abuse: A Phenomenological Hermeneutic Analysis

This qualitative study informs the literature by bringing two perspectives together: the trauma of residential school abuse and the transpersonal viewpoint of healing. A phenomenological hermeneutic approach explored lived experiences of residential school survivors and their families. Transpersonal psychology was introduced as the focus for a new healing paradigm. The research questions ask, “What has been the lived experience of the trauma of residential school abuse” and “How are traditional and non-traditional healing practices mutually applied in the recovery process by individuals who are impacted by the residential school experience”? Five First Nations co-researchers were interviewed, the data was analyzed, coded, and a thematic analysis was undertaken from which six themes emerged. The results of this study may go on to employ this new healing paradigm to help First Nations people gain spiritual wholeness. Finally, a description and summary of research findings, limitations and implications for counselling were discussed.

Transforming the Addicted Person's Counterfeit Quest for Wholeness through Three Stages of Recovery: A Wilber Transpersonal Spectrum of Development Clinical Perspective.

In this article, we look at how an addicted person can through the therapeutic process replace the addiction “short cut” counterfeit quest for wholeness with an authentic quest for wholeness using Wilber’ transpersonal spectrum of development model by working through different developmental levels during three stages of recovery. The first stage of recovery focuses on abstinence. A second stage of recovery beyond abstinence is called for of embracing and working through the emotional underbelly beneath the addictive process. Eventually, a third phase of recovery can be worked on which entails letting go of the addiction to the separate self and the mind by embracing nondual living. Wilber’s transpersonal model of development is utilized including ten stages, and three overall phases of development including: prepersonal, personal, and transpersonal. Possible pathologies and treatment interventions are reviewed for each level including specific addiction and recovery implications for. Throughout this article, case studies and anecdotal accounts from past clients will be used to better exemplify this process.