Admissions in Practices of Psychiatry and Psychology

You do not know everything. I know, big shocker, right? Even if we deny the spiritual entirely, there are still things in any given case which are unknown and, perhaps, unknowable. A person’s obsession with things to gain power may be labelled as “narcissism,” but it could also reflect a spiritual calling to something more, depending upon context, or a simple practical response to unmet needs. A large portion of the psychiatric diagnostic manuals are devoted to avoidance of reducing a singular aspect to a full-blown diagnosis for this very reason, so we already do go quite out of our way in psychology not to ignore the complexity of human experience, under the guise of extenuating circumstances.

In fact all diagnoses could be reduced to reduction, the reduction of the individual to a category. Plenty of phenomena are within our understanding and some are not so easily reducible. Some phenomena will prove so irreducible that there is very little value in any categorisation, and in fact a great cost. The materialist framework offers clarity, at the cost of oversimplification. Any given spiritual framework invites openness, but also at the potential cost of oversimplification. Both have their place, yet neither can stand alone.

Generally it is true that the more advanced a scientific model becomes, the greater likelihood of gaps, which are areas where our understanding fails, is incomplete, or is uncertain. This is especially true when dealing with phenomena that involve subjective experience, emotional intensity, and collective trauma; expressly describing psychology itself here. To label phenomena as “mental illness” or “possession” is to impose a structure on something never meant to fit neatly into our categories. These frameworks are tools: useful, but not infallible. The key lies in using them with humility and awareness of their limitations. We must recognise that while we cannot know everything, we can still ask questions, seek understanding, and act with compassion.

Psychology and psychiatry today generally deal with this duality in a pragmatic way without acknowledging the deeper philosophical dichotomy. This pragmatism comes out in proposals of short-term (materialist) and long-term (spiritualist) therapies in order. Most commonly this is done with some medication being the most immediate treatment, which may enable other more long-term solutions, often in the form of therapy through discourse practices, such as cognitive behavioural therapy.