Posted by bergamot on May 10, 2001, at 19:35:33
In reply to Re: schizotypes » Doo, posted by NikkiT2 on May 10, 2001, at 16:52:23
I also recommend adding Kierkegaard to your reading list (who was working on the reading list?). Oh, and Paul Tillich is good--try _The Courage to Be_.
I'm pretty out of it from increasing the seroquel dose recently, but I'll try to be coherent.
Even if thinking about existential matters is supposed to be an open-ended search for truth, there are answers that society expects. and if you come to the "wrong" ones (or the "wrong" ones come to you), it becomes a pathology rather than a religious or spiritual life.
A few weeks ago I was half-watching some show about some psychotic killer, and I realized that what he said about the reasoning behind killing the kid made sense to me, for I have had the same thoughts about killing myself. though "had the thoughts" doesn't quite describe it. the thoughts were more thrust upon me (to misquote Shakespeare). I missed the end, so I still don't know if he was judged to be insane. I'm usually pretty good at recognizing when my thoughts would be called psychotic according to the standards of society, but to have them displayed in a context of criminal insanity was somewhat distressing.
but when the so-called psychotic thoughts are the ones that are the most real, the most true, the most revealing about the nature of the universe, I can't just dismiss them as results of neurotransmitter imbalances. It's the strong conviction of being right, of knowing more, of going beyond everyday knowledge and relationships and morality that makes me even yearn for the greater depth and clarity of the "psychosis". I can see how my doctor would diagnose me with a psychotic disorder; I haven't lost my grasp on societal mores--I just have, at times, access to something greater and more fundametal than that.
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how does one find someone who does existential therapy? I'm moving to a city much larger than where I currently am next month, so I'll have tons more therapist options.
poster:bergamot
thread:5880
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20010417/msgs/5947.html