Dear Member,
Welcome to our first newsletter. The SIG got off to an
enthusiastic and successful start last autumn with the help of our
Chairman Dr Andrew Powell and the preliminary working group
consisting of Drs. Julian Candy, Larry Culliford, Peter Fenwick,
Chris Holman and Professor Andrew Sims. Membership has risen
from 170 at inception to 220 in March this year.
We hope the newsletter will evolve and develop and we welcome
ideas and contributions from members as to what they would like
included in it. We aim to send it out at least twice yearly. Other
possible sections are a Discussion Forum, Points of Interest, Book
Reviews, Research Topics and letters that are of relevance to this
SIG. Please do contact us with your ideas and comments. We
shall be very pleased to hear your views. (Addresses for
correspondence are at the end of the newsletter).
Warmest good wishes
Gillian Broster & Daphne Wallace
(editors)
1.
Review of Meetings to date:
24 September 1999 at the College: Inaugural
Meeting
Thirty members of the college were present. The Registrar, Dr
Mike Shooter, opened the meeting. He said he felt sure this
group would do well and described the process by which the
application had gone to the Executive and Finance Committee before
being approved by the Council. The required 120 signatories
in support of the group had been received in record time, within
only a couple of weeks. He mentioned that there are now 11
SIGs and that this was the first to be approved in two years.
Dr Andrew Powell received a warm welcome from the meeting and then
gave a history of the drafting of the proposal by the preliminary
working group. The working group then introduced themselves
and why they personally had wanted to see the SIG
established. This was followed by a general discussion in
which many of the members present spoke about why they felt the SIG
was important. Several members expressed relief that there
was now a forum at which they could talk freely about spiritual
topics with colleagues.
Dr Andrew Powell was elected as Chairman (proposed by Peter Fenwick
and seconded by Andrew Sims). It was agreed that the working group
be expanded to continue as a steering group and six further members
were then elected: Gillian Broster, Sara Eagger, Tony Gahan, Dele
Olajide, Pauline Stevenson and Daphne Wallace. It was further
agreed to invite Dinesh Bhugra in view of his contribution to the
field of religion and mental health. Larry Culliford kindly
agreed to serve as Treasurer.
There
was then a general discussion of topics to be explored and how the
group would conduct itself. It was agreed that the SIG would
be closed to non-members of the college to begin with, apart from
guest speakers. Meetings would be eligible for CPD. Possibilities
for research and supervision of spiritual topics were also raised.
Support would be obtained from the Conference Unit in the college
for the planning of a two-day residential conference. The SIG
would also wish to contribute to the college’s annual meeting.
14January 2000 at the College. Programme: What do we
mean by Spirituality and its relation to
Psychiatry
Fifty members of the SIG were present. Presentations were
deliberately kept brief, - “seed presentations” – to
facilitate discussion. Dr Culliford talked
on “Emotions and Spirituality”. He indicated a relationship
between the biological, psychological, psychosocial and spiritual
and drew a contrast between the pain-free emotions of trust, calm,
contentment and joy and the pain of desire, anxiety, guilt and
shame, highlighting loss as the cause of pain and the basis of
detachment as a spiritual benefit. Dr
Olajide spoke on “The Self and the Unquiet Mind” and how
patients needed help in making sense of mental illness in the quest
for self-knowledge. Mental illness undermines the integrity
of the self, with fears of loss of control, fragmentation and
annihilation. Yet the greater the self-doubt, the greater the
possibility of faith. It is the shock of the realisation of
mortality that can lead to the sense of something greater than the
individual self. Dr Gahan spoke on “Belief
or Delusion?” giving an account of a patient whose abnormal
thoughts, while conforming on one level to textbook delusions,
became readily intelligible once the patient’s cultural and
life-long religious beliefs were taken into account and explored
with her. As a consequence of this her hostility subsided and
her care could be managed differently.
After lunch, Dr Holman talked on “Working with
Despair” and gave two clinical vignettes. He discussed how
the psychiatrists might react when asked, “Give me one good
reason for staying alive?” He linked such terminal sense of
alienation and disengagement from the world to the infant losing
it’s secure attachment, with the loss of its transitional space,
later reflected in absence of any containing transcendental
space. To discover a sense of self required the capacity for
being “without shame, to be able to love and be loved and to be
able to act” (on the world).
Dr Candy spoke on “Spirituality in Hospice
Psychiatry”. He looked at spirituality in terms of Ken
Wilbur’s notion of “ultimate concern”, using the axes of the
individual/collective and interior/exterior to bring into
relationship consciousness, science, culture and society. In
the hospice setting, the ultimate shared concerns of residents and
staff creates an ambience of spirituality in which the realisation
of “Who I really am” can enable long-standing phobias and
obsessions to recede.
All the talks stimulated lively discussion and in the plenary
session it was agreed that one-day meetings of the SIG would be
held three times a year, with a fourth event at the annual college
meeting.
13 April 2000 at the College. Programme: Fear and Faith
– the Quandary of the Psyche Under Threat
Thirty members of the SIG were present. Dr
Campbell presented a video tape recording of a Tanzanian
traditional healer treating a 60-year old woman and her daughter
for psychotic symptoms (somatic hallucinations, paranoid delusions)
using a wide range of techniques and rituals, which included the
reciting of prayers and confronting both psychological and
spiritual aspects. Dr. Campbell discussed this holistic approach,
noting the healer’s empathic manner as he moved with ease from one
modality to another. At follow-up 9 months later, he found that the
patient had completely recovered.
Dr Crowley reviewed a fluctuating psychotic illness in a
55-year old woman with terminal nasopharyngeal carcinoma whose
presenting symptom of tinnitus had been missed. The patient became
deeply depressed and presented with delusions of guilt and auditory
and visual hallucinations. After her mental state had
improved, she had made the comment, “cancer is nothing compared to
losing your mind”. She appeared to be defending against any
reflective self-exploration that might reveal her sense of loss and
anger. It was noted that death is the more terrifying if there is
no forgiveness of self and other.
After lunch Dr Hammad considered the meaning of
natural death, suicide and homicide from the point of view of the
Muslim faith. His presentation provided much valuable
information and insight related to these aspects of Islam. Since
man cannot give life, neither must he take life, including his own
and the Muslim patient may need to be faced with the dire spiritual
consequence of such an act. Dr Raji spoke on the
theme of “losing the self and finding the soul”, in which she
explored the meaning of death in African culture. She pointed
out that funerals hold no fear for children in this culture since
the afterlife and the influence of the spirit world are taken as
every day realities. She compared this with the western psychology
of object loss based on the finality of death.
The talks again provoked much discussion and sharing of
ideas. At the plenary session, it was agreed that no
fundamental conflict existed between science and religion. It
was felt that psychiatrists need to be concerned with spirituality,
since patients often confide that they live with an emptiness and
lack of any real purpose in their life.
2.
Forthcoming Events
Mental Anguish and
Religion mentalhealth and spirituality – a
positive partnership?
The Institute of Physics, W.1. on
Friday, 30th June 2000 Enquiries: tel: 01273 24 26
34.
College Annual Meeting
Edinburgh 3rd - 7th July
At an open meeting of the SIG, Dr
Peter Fenwick will speak on “Intimations of Immortality – the
nature of Near-death Visions”, Thursday, 6th July 5.15 –
6.30 p.m.
A Conference – Psychosis
and Spirituality
Run by the University of Southampton
on 7th & 8th September 2000 at the
Marwell Hotel, Winchester. For
reservations and enquiries contact Mr David Beck,
Tel/Fax: 023 8082 5543. E-mail:
dkb@soton.ac.uk
Next SIG Autumn One-Day Meeting
will be at the College on 20th October
Title: “Avenues to
Peace of Mind” (see programme and reply slip enclosed
with June mailing)
College Annual Meeting,
London 9th – 13th July 2001
The SIG has applied both to run
workshops and give formal presentations.
3.
Research
Dr Findlay has offered to lead a
research group and invites members to contact him on
christopher@findlay.u-net.com
4.
Other News
An anthropologist now taking an MSc in
Medical Anthropology at Brunel University is developing a project
to research the hypothesis that religious or spiritual experience
and certain symptoms of psychosis exist within a continuum, and
represent the polarities of consciousness. She is anxious to
work with sympathetic mental health professionals, particularly
psychiatrists, and to conduct appropriate surveys, questionnaires
and perhaps qualitative interviews. Any reader interested in
such a collaboration please contact Dr Julian Candy, phone 023
80844149, juliancandy@compuserve.com,
who can provide further information.
Addresses for enquiries, correspondence or
articles:
Dr Gillian
Broster
or Dr
Daphne Wallace
Child Guidance
Centre
Tel: 01282 841608
Avenue
House
Fax: 01282 842291
8 Bycullah
Avenue Daphne@drwallace.nildram.co.uk
Enfield EN2 8DW
Tel: 020 8367
8844
Fax: 8366 0789
GB@lbe-eps-avenue.demon.co.uk