Ep252: Religion & Psychiatry - Dr Chencho Dorji & Dr Caroline Van Damme
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 28 พ.ค. 2024
- In this episode I host a dialogue between Dr Chencho Dorji, Bhutan’s first psychiatrist and the Professor of Psychiatry at Khesar Gyalpo University of Medical Sciences, and Dr Caroline Van Damme, an adult psychiatrist and family and systemic psychotherapist specialising in chronic psychotic disorders.
Drs Dorji and Van Damme dialogue about their experiences as psychiatrists in very different countries, Bhutan and Belgium. They compare their experiences treating religious psychosis in which patients believe they are Jesus or Padmasambhava, address mental health stigma, and examine the interaction of supernatural beliefs such as spirit possession with modern psychiatry.
The Drs discuss the emerging mental health laws in Bhutan, including forced treatment laws, innovative treatment models, and pressures from pharmaceutical companies.
The Drs also consider the pros and cons of religion to both society and the individual, examine three levels of Bhutanese Buddhism, and reflect on the dire consequences of the death of Christianity in Europe.
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www.guruviking.com/podcast/ep...
Also available on TH-cam, iTunes, & Spotify - search ‘Guru Viking Podcast’.
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Topics include:
00:00 - Intro
01:16 - How they met
03:44 - Dr Chencho’s visit to the Night Hospital in Belgium
05:12 - Dr Chencho’s side of the story
06:07 - Fascination with the ‘Night Hospital’ model
08:33 - Sharing models between countries
09:39 - Not trying to cure
12:36 - Mental health challenges in developed vs developing countries
15:04 - Psychiatry is a simple science
17:26 - Negligence of psychotic patients
19:01 - Stigma around mental illness
23:03 - Pressure from pharmaceutical companies
25:53 - Mental health laws in Bhutan
30:17 - Forced treatment laws in Belgium
39:15 - Complications of supernatural beliefs in Bhutan
41:28 - Getting the family on side
45:02 - Anti-psychiatry beliefs
46:57 - Psychosis or spirit possession?
49:25 - Dangers of marijuana
55:38 - Padmasambhava’s proscription against smoking
58:00 - Religion at societal and personal level
59:47 - Religious psychosis
01:01:23 - 3 levels of Buddhism
01:02:27 - Pros and cons of religious belief
01:06:25 - Treating psychotic Padmasambhavas
01:08:06 - Patients who hear God
01:11:00 - Fading of Christianity in Europe
01:13:03 - Spiritual void and fading of religion in Bhutan
01:13:55 - Today’s Buddhist monks’ failings
01:16:00 - Learning from the fall of European religion
01:21:17 - Science vs religion
01:22:05 - Spiritual void and suicide
01:24:04 - Is religion needed?
01:26:38 - Lack of priests
01:29:40 - Uniqueness of psychiatry
01:31:25 - Reflections on inter-cultural collaboration
01:33:53 - Dr Caroline praises Dr Chencho’s accomplishments
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Previous episodes with Dr Chencho Dorji:
- www.guruviking.com/search?q=c...
Previous episode with Dr Caroline Van Damme:
- www.guruviking.com/search?q=d...
To find out more about Dr Chencho Dorji, visit:
- profile.php?...
To find out more about Dr Van Damme, visit:
- www.sowarigpainstitute.org/dr...
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For more interviews, videos, and more visit:
- www.guruviking.com
Music ‘Deva Dasi’ by Steve James - บันเทิง
40 minutes in and I glanced down at my phone and remembered that guru viking is there too! With this sort of dialogue I feel that the greatest skill of the host is finding and coordinating the best pairs of guests and then letting the guests have an engaging conversation, chiming in if the guests get too far off track or lose the thread. Great conversation and thank you guru viking for another high class video!
The Viking is good at just listening for as long as necessary after asking a good question.
Interesting conversation touching on so many issues. I appreciated the perspective that both doctors have. I was disappointed they didn't go into how they converse with patients who believe they are God or a Deity themselves. Maybe another guest on the show has addressed this topic.
Thank you Jeffrey!
Both doctors discuss in their individual interviews, with significant detail, the topic of dealing with religious psychosis.
In particular try:
- Ep245: Padmasambhava Psychosis - Dr Chencho Dorji 2
- Ep143: Psychiatry & Religious Experience - Dr Caroline Van Damme
(Episodes linked in episode description or search the titles on TH-cam)
Thanks Guru Viking I will scheck it out
the blues la Doctors and the host …Steve
I mean I hear a lot of the blues here. Truth n theories to me…
And I would also like to share that Doctor chencho had helped establish many a Non governmental organisations in our country given his back ground… a pioneer in humanitarian efforts la… 😅 and the other two doctors too
Kadrinchay la 🙏🏼💙🙏🏼
In this conversation an apparent paradox is raised. On the one hand both psychiatrists talk about the religious delusions their patients might suffer (believing they are Jesus or Padmasambhava) and how distressing that is for one and all... and yet, they fear the loss of those very same religions which inspire such delusion.
It is well said that "necessity is the mother of invention"... so what necessity is at the heart of the creative impulse which brings forth a religion? It is the creative force of our imagination which conjures a sacred belief and once conjured makes us its prisoner.
I appreciate the perspectives shared by the two speakers, but I have to be the harsh voice in this discussion. Psychiatry pins labels on people and then expects everyone around those defined as 'ill' to see that person from their lenses, too, which - without even realizing it - risks reducing the amount of actual relating and insight we have with one another, or even alienates. We become separated and defined by labels, instead of actually experiencing the other as the multi-layered individual that they are, which would already be coloured by our own perspective regardless, but can be even more limited by psychiatric labels; as if psychotic, or some other other term, or any other made-up acronym can really encompass a whole person. You may as well see people just for their gender or the color of their skin; that is how backwards it is. The defined and undefined both lose insight in this way as they narrow their vision of oneself and the other. The same is just as true for the person holding the DSM who gives up on caring about the unique *causes* of issues for each and every person they see, and instead finds solace - however misleading - in only seeing black and white answers in cookie cutter outcomes with little explanation as to how they developed and came to be. Unfortunately, it is the person who gets called crazy who loses the most, as just one label can cause lack of confidence and mistrust in their own capacity to function, but psychiatry doesn't talk about those outcomes from its desire to pathologize those who experience the world differently, or even as a consequence of trauma. So-called mental health professionals are more likely to focus attention on the sufferer's issues than the matters or persons that caused their suffering, which can just add more elements of self blame and shame. In that way, I think a lot of people defined by the DSM by these 'professionals' have lost their own voices (and minds) because they've been taught not to trust themselves even by the people that were supposed to help them heal and recover what they lost. This is not in a spiritually tinged way when it is less about detachment from ego and more about simply accepting someone else's reality about us (however subjective), and I hardly believe that should be considered acceptable treatment for anything, especially when it includes dismissing the patients' experiences as holding any truth. I'd rather listen to a spiritually evolved individual who wants me to know myself and believes what I say than to a psych-minded individual who wants to insist they know me inside and out based on a small segment of my personality that relates to some *path*ologized aspect written in the DSM and doesn't give a damn about my personal story outside of symptomology. That is the wrong PATH to follow.
If psychiatry and psychology existed in Buddha's time, he would have probably been called psychotic, or pathologized in some other way. Heck, his visions of Mara would have been enough. Whose to say the visions of today's 'psychotics' aren't similar, and in need of triumphing and overcoming instead of denying and medicating? We are more bombarded with worldly everything than the ascetics of the past were, especially in western society; it seems only natural that would make spiritual progress that much more challenging, especially when certain sciences (even pseudo ones) seem to be in complete opposition to spiritual matters. Not to mention so many people are not even in touch with their spiritual roots, which I think can make less typical experiences more confusing and put people at more risk of being pathologized because they are alienated from a community who might see things more spiritually. As it was mentioned: religious connection is protective of ending one's life; I would not doubt the same protection exists for any so-called psychiatric experiences given more than a few are also tied to spiritual experiences and even progress, at least until a therapist comes along and tells you you're crazy. Tantric aspects of even alchemy come to mind as well, given that everything is on a spectrum, and if you're going to pathologize one end, why not the other? Impulsivity and spontaneity come to mind, the former of which is pathologized by the DSM; but it seems to me that perspective can change the view of the same activity that leads to such a deduction. What is it that slices them differently? Polite society? Hah.
It's no wonder that psychiatry can be traced as far back to witches being called hysterical (by the white knight himself, Johann Weyer), but now we have spiritual retreats restricting access to anyone who has been stigmatized by psychiatry and psychology the worst (particularly those diagnosed as schizophrenics or with bpd), even if the label could be wrong, but this is what we call progress! No wonder people are 'sick' when they might have to choose between honesty and hiding to simply partake in meditation or sangha. In this way, spirituality is losing its own roots by believing in psychiatry when inclusion is not so inclusive at all because of it.
"Whatever we believe is a delusion" is probably as succinct as you can put this matter. Those believing they know another person psychologically and diagnostically would do well to remember that, especially if they think they're a professional in knowing anything about another in such a way, especially when merely based on time limited descriptions. This profession in particular has a very embarrassing history, and I would place bets that history will repeat itself even if it takes another 100 years to disprove the beliefs held about mental health today, no matter that we might think we've come so far. It was just a few years back that Denmark allowed the forced capture and holding of Karina Hansen in a psychiatric treatment centre because they believed they could treat her chronic fatigue through what amounts to a torture regimen for a sufferer. If you are going to talk about abuses in religion, then please speak as plainly about the abuses of psychiatry/psychology, and how it is no less susceptible to leaving the most vulnerable at risk of harm when in the four corners of a room shared by doctor and patient the former can write whatever life-ruining dribble they wish, and even use it as a defense to the harm they can cause behind closed doors. Even in the best of situations, outsiders are often clueless about what therapy really entails, and patients are at risk of becoming victims of the false beliefs they are subjected to in the name of treatment. Similarly, psychiatry and psychology are more than happy to steal spiritual techniques for their own profits and deliver them to clients without the deeper soul or depth that makes them effective, all while throwing the word 'science' around like it means anything to them when it just might be more true that the field isn't scientific at all, and is more subjective than they'd like anyone to know. Evidence Based Practice alone has become nothing more than a buzzword, and let's face it: psychology and psychiatry are big business. You or I believing we are sick and in need of treatment fills someone else's wallet, and so long as that's true, people will keep paying the good doctors for their opinions, however inaccurate or unhelpful they may actually be. The mental health movement has become nothing more than a farce as the general public has been convinced everyone can benefit from therapy, and now what motivation is there for therapists to take on the most wounded patients, if that's actually what they are supposed to be treating, helping, or healing, when the soccer mom who's just bored and has $200 to spare just wants to talk?
Personally, I will be at peace when these professions care, take seriously, and are solely focused on trauma. The reality is most people aren't aware of how little this profession actually understands and puts weight on such matters.
Too much chinese influence on your young people . Be aware in B.