There is not just one way of making sense of reality; instead, each culture and even each subculture goes about it differently. Further, many or even most people affirm beliefs in various “spiritual” aspects of reality that transcend everyday experiences. But this leads to the question: how are we to distinguish healthy diversity in culture and spirituality, from that which is pathological or “psychotic?”
One approach to this question is to assert that if a way of making sense is common in a culture, then it is sane and acceptable, while if it is unique and causes significant difficulties, then it is pathological. While this approach makes room for diversity that is well established in large social groups, it risks pathologizing what might be to some degree healthy innovations made by individuals.
This course will explore how therapy for psychosis, such as CBT, can be practiced in a flexible way to adopt to cultural and spiritual differences, allowing for collaborative and respectful explorations of both the possible value as well as dangers of various ways of approaching reality. Based on such explorations, people have a better chance of discovering their own paths to a healthy integration and a path forward in their lives.
Topics covered include
• Applying cultural competence and cultural humility within treatment for psychosis, to make treatment more acceptable, relevant, and effective
• The intersection of racial and other oppressions and psychosis
• The possible reasons individuals and also sometimes also groups of people (as in conspiracy theories) break away from culturally established ways of making sense
• Shifting treatment from a “colonizing” to an “emancipatory” approach, with a central role for dialogue
• Attempts to clearly distinguish spiritual crisis from psychosis, problems encountered by those attempts, and an alternative approach
• Effective approaches to respectfully address even deep spiritual or existential issues within treatment for psychosis
