I clearly remember a rock bottom moment in my life, during a skiing holiday some thirty years ago. Walking back to my digs, I suddenly felt how easy it would be to drop out of my life - disappear, into homelessness, giving up... and then another part of me came to the fore: "But I won't do that."
In all my personal crises, I needed space more than anything else.
Professionally, I have no experience working with someone acutely experiencing psychotic symptoms. However, I do remember during my first time working in a Community Mental Health Team, a trainee Mental Health Professional and a more experienced one were compaing notes on clients when being sectioned on occasion saying "I would have been alright if left alone" - both mocking the statement. Again, I have no experience to decide.
However, Eleanor Longden ended her TED talk a couple of years ago with the words "The Inner Light never goes out". (In personal communication she stated that comment was for her a figure of speech - i.e. she was not relating to any spiritual tradition. She talks about coming back from the experience of being acutely psychotic.
What I can comment on is the belief that keeping a person safe has to be done in aid of assisting them to be themselves again - more a process than an outcome, of course. What I have seen in Mental Health wards was in my view, I regret to say, the opposite - the denying of the person's experience and rights to help themselves
Years ago, I was working in the community with a young man suffering from acute alcoholism, drinking his life away. He was kept safe partly by the Care Agency who came into his house everyday as he needed assistance with his personal cure due to Cerebral Palsy. When that agency called a crisis meeting, I used that to point out the situation as drastic as it was (and perhaps a little bit more) - to tell my client when the agency staff had left, he knew in his heart what he needed to do.. to save his life. And he did.
In all my personal crises, I needed space more than anything else.
Professionally, I have no experience working with someone acutely experiencing psychotic symptoms. However, I do remember during my first time working in a Community Mental Health Team, a trainee Mental Health Professional and a more experienced one were compaing notes on clients when being sectioned on occasion saying "I would have been alright if left alone" - both mocking the statement. Again, I have no experience to decide.
However, Eleanor Longden ended her TED talk a couple of years ago with the words "The Inner Light never goes out". (In personal communication she stated that comment was for her a figure of speech - i.e. she was not relating to any spiritual tradition. She talks about coming back from the experience of being acutely psychotic.
What I can comment on is the belief that keeping a person safe has to be done in aid of assisting them to be themselves again - more a process than an outcome, of course. What I have seen in Mental Health wards was in my view, I regret to say, the opposite - the denying of the person's experience and rights to help themselves
Years ago, I was working in the community with a young man suffering from acute alcoholism, drinking his life away. He was kept safe partly by the Care Agency who came into his house everyday as he needed assistance with his personal cure due to Cerebral Palsy. When that agency called a crisis meeting, I used that to point out the situation as drastic as it was (and perhaps a little bit more) - to tell my client when the agency staff had left, he knew in his heart what he needed to do.. to save his life. And he did.
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