v. Health, ill-health and care
- Interviews 2009-2010
- i. Background and relationships
- ii. Ideological residence and practice
- iii. Fate and laws of life
- iv. God or a larger, ordering entity
- v. Health, ill-health and care
- we. Faith and knowledge
- vii. Future visions and goals
- Summary i-vii
“I mean hospital? It should be called a sanatorium. Go learn how to stay healthy. Don't go and learn how to get somewhere when you've been sick.”
What the interviewees say in general about illness, health, self-care, etc. What the interviewees think about the care that society provides. What the interviewees say about how care should ideally work.
Physical health care
Somatic care is viewed with some skepticism. An interviewee tells how she tried to persuade her friends and acquaintances not to get vaccinated. Traditional care is too much focused on cure, instead of prevention. One of the respondents has previously worked in healthcare and says:
The care as it works, I am very disappointed that it is as conservative as it was when I worked in it... Hierarchical and very focused on diseases and like somatics. So very little on prevention, and on a holistic view and on health and so on.
Today's healthcare is all too focused on fixing or repairing when the individual has already become ill, while it should work more preventively:
And that's where it's lacking in today's society, with stress and... There's like nothing to prevent. There are… I mean hospitals. It should be called a sanatorium. Go learn how to stay healthy. Don't go and learn how to get somewhere when you've gotten sick.
The National Board of Health and Welfare is too strict and opposes alternative perspectives being able to gain influence in healthcare, according to one respondent. At the same time, there is something good about them doing this, says the same person, because otherwise it could have many unwanted consequences.
Psychiatry, psychotherapy and psychology
Today, psychologists work "too narrowly". Today's psychology is mechanistic: "Pavlov's dogs." Some can be achieved with desensitization and the like, extinguishing desired behaviors and the like, or curing phobias, but psychologists should aim higher than being just "dog psychologists". Psychologists and therapists need to become more open to the existential dimension, not so much being "inside these mental corridors and wandering". An existential understanding should form the very basis of how they treat and try to help their clients.
Psychopharmaceuticals do not belong to the future. Instead, the individual needs to get to the bottom of his problems and not be passive in the role of being a victim of circumstances. Psychiatry must be able to offer "a rational solution to the mystery of life", it is not enough with "valium or snack therapy". In therapy, it is common to just "knead and knead" and be asked about how you were in your childhood, without any real change taking place. After that, the client moves on in life and it looks just like before. Instead, one should take a holistic approach and possibly give concrete advice, which can be followed up on the next visit, says another interviewee.
People risk being caught between psychiatry and the church, both of which lack real knowledge of the truly existential perspectives and, in the worst case, only send clients between them. Therapy that helps people get in touch with past life experiences can be helpful. Neo-spirituality, with its karma and reincarnation thinking, has "an enormous explanatory potential" and mainstream psychology should adopt these perspectives. Focusing on the current life is often not enough to understand why a person is having a hard time. In those cases, you need to be able to take in the larger perspective. Without this, it is easy to come to the wrong conclusions.
A respondent who for many years suffered from severe depression, without doctors being able to help her, finally had to come to a psychotherapist within the county council, who helped her. The interviewee says that she tried many times to bring up the spiritual perspective with her therapist, but that he had avoided this and emphasized that they should instead talk about what was more immediate. The interviewee understands this for today:
I was really frustrated, because I didn't think she understood anything /laughs/. But she was like that... Yes, but it doesn't matter if I understand or not, because it's not. That's not what we're supposed to be talking about. And that was probably GOOD for me. Then I really got to be there, and be in me, and I would solve my personal problems, not to be in it. So it was great right then. But then I was done too /laughs/. And then I don't know if... Too many times I could sit and think that maybe she was spiritual, but that she held it back so that I wouldn't get into it too much, but that I would be in it . So either she was shitty and the wrong therapist, or she was just the right therapist and damn good. So I'm hoping for the latter /laughs/.
The respondent says that she still wishes that "the spiritual part" would have a greater place in the care, but that she was nevertheless very happy with the care and help she received.
"Spiritual Problems"
An interest in this kind of spirituality can be associated with certain risks. These risks are partly the same as those cited by respondents for traditional religiosity, eg stagnation and narrowness, but the newer spirituality is also associated with specific dangers.
It is important that psychological maturity precedes spiritual development, emphasizes one of the interviewees. Otherwise, there may be an imbalance. The individual must not run ahead of himself, it can be risky. This especially applies to exercises that aim to activate the so-called "kundalini energy". Trouble with this particular energy is in turn linked to what are called "chakras". Problems with the kundalini energy can manifest as a burning sensation in the head, in the "crown chakra" of the person, if it feels bad. The interviewee tells about a stay at a course farm where a man became very ill because of such exercises. However, he was helped by a woman who could provide healing:
There are courses like this where there is this kind of spiritual development, and medium development, and hey and ha, then there are those who... I was at a course like that... and then there was a guy who, he became really bad there. He got so fucking sick. He had... I don't know how much you know about the kundalini energy and so... It's a great energy, when it's in the right places. But when he was at his worst, the kundalini energy... it's supposed to be in the spine... it was completely loose in his body. And that energy is so powerful that it can burn from within. His crown chakra was wide open. Because we had worked a lot during this week, with spiritual development, a little personal development, and no grounding. And that is what is so very important that you ground, ground, ground, ground.
In most cases, however, there is a natural barrier, according to the interviewee, which means that most people cannot actually activate or gain access to such spiritual forces before the psychological preparatory work is done in a proper way. They "wear themselves blue" with various exercises, but without succeeding in making any spiritual progress. In severe cases, a so-called "spiritual emergency" may arise. The symptoms of this are similar to psychosis, but are not the same. One of the interviewees has a close relative who was wrongly diagnosed with psychosis, when in fact it was a spiritual emergency:
Yes, my tiredness lies in the fact that there is a lot of unresolved stuff from when I was little. And my mother had psychoses, and hey and hoo. Which turned out NOT to be psychosis, but it was spiritual emergency. She opened up too quickly, and then there was a lot of Jesus, and hi and ho, so that yes... so you've got an understanding of it.
Suddenly retrieving memories from past lives can also put the individual at risk of losing their footing. One of the respondents talks about how she herself questioned her sanity, thought that she might have become psychotic, when she first started having such premonitions or images. But since she was otherwise fine, she came to the conclusion that there must be something else behind it. There are stories in the data material about having a heightened sensitivity that can be troublesome. This can make it necessary to be extra careful with the situations the individual puts themselves in. This is described as the person experiencing that a certain place can have "low energies", which can make it difficult for the person to function optimally there.
There is also a connection here to the individual's spiritual development. It is an ideal to be "open" and to try to develop such receptivity, but this also makes the person extra sensitive to influences. An openness to influences from the spirit world is not automatically a good thing. It is important that the person's channel is clean.
Sometimes the individual can feel bad because of his "twin soul", in such a way that the person picks up on the mental state of the twin soul:
But it's also... which I didn't understand at first... that some kind of telepathic thing. I thought, okay, he's a little disturbed. I sort of get resonances like this, or whatever the hell it's called, huh, it sounds a bit like this... He relieves a bit of the pressure on me. But, no, it's not just that, but it's... Yes, then... you know each other. It's also... Late, so I read a little late, and understood yes this exists. With that person, if it exists... even if you haven't met it, I think, I don't know... But especially if you have met it, or live with it, you have a yes telepathic contact. That you can, if you work hard, some people can read each other's thoughts and stuff like that. But that you get the same symptoms and such, pains... anxiety for example.
Symptoms with roots in past lives
The trauma and difficult experiences in past lives can cause symptoms and problems in the current life. In the data material, there are many testimonies of problems stemming from previous incarnations. An interviewee says that she used to feel severe discomfort when she was about to receive a syringe or when healthcare personnel needed to insert a needle so that she could receive a drip. During a session with a medium, the interviewee received images of how she had been exposed to various medical experiments in a previous life. From that day, the respondent's complaints in this area decreased.
One respondent says that she grew up during a period when it was fashionable to wear polo shirts. However, she was tormented by wearing such garments, as it felt like she was suffocating. These complaints were getting worse. She sensed then that there must be something else behind it. During hypnosis, the respondent had to relive how she had been beheaded in a previous life, in France. After this treatment the problems disappeared.
One of the interviewees tells us that she had long had problems with speaking, that she used to stab herself and therefore often chose to remain silent. During a visit to a medium, she asked him for advice. The medium then told that the respondent's problems were connected to the fact that in a previous life she was taken care of in a monastery and forbidden to speak there. The medium prepared a jar of herbs which she placed on the respondent's neck. The respondent had then become very sad and began to breathe heavily. Today, she understands that it was something that had been hanging on from a previous life, but that was released because of this treatment and which meant that she now has less trouble speaking.
One respondent says that her desire to be able to do something that feels meaningful was explained through a conversation with a medium, who had explained to the respondent that she had died as a soldier in a previous life:
In a previous life you were a soldier and when you were lying there in the trench you realized that this is completely pointless lying here. And then you were shot at exactly the same moment, and that feeling has been with you ever since. So I understand that you don't want to deal with pointless things.
Many common phobias can have a similar basis: "There are those who, for example, don't like water, you don't like heights, and things like this, then it could be that you die like that. That you drowned or fell down.” An interviewee tells us that the back pain she suffered from was explained by her experiencing the original trauma from a previous life. In that life she had been hit by a cab. This memory allowed this trauma to dissolve, something that would have been difficult to achieve in any other way, according to the interviewee.
Another respondent says that as a child she learned to swim like all other children. However, in her teens, during a camping holiday, she seems to lose this ability and she sinks. This is something incomprehensible to her. After that, many years pass, but finally the respondent decides to seek help from a hypnotist. This person can then tell that the interviewee drowned in a previous life when she was just in her teens. After this consultation, she no longer has any problems remembering how to swim.
Even if the individual only imagines that it is a past life that she experiences, but that she manages to get rid of a problem in this way, there is something good about it, says one respondent: "Reincarnation therapy, some people can benefit from it like, that you might... Either that you just think that you are reliving a previous life, with some trauma from there, as it were, that can untie some knot."
The importance of childhood
To what degree it is experiences in childhood or in this life that have shaped us, different offers are given. That the individual would have brought with him his experiences from previous existences is perceived as more likely:
And then I feel it is much more reasonable to imagine that I had them with me from before, than that they ended up somewhere in some huge trauma there like me... Okay, even if I didn't get the answer, I kind of still got an explanatory hypothesis, as to why I have became like me... why it went the way it did. I had rehearsed a lot of rubbish through life.
Childhood experiences are rarely enough to explain the problems the client has. Some pieces of the puzzle may come from this life, but not all. The therapist can twist and turn this as much as he wants, but there will still be pieces missing. It is wrong to attribute such great explanatory value to childhood. In order to understand why a certain person suffers from, for example, psychosis or schizophrenia, many different levels need to be considered. The fact that the individual grew up with disturbed parents is apparently not enough, because some children become ill, while others do not, even though these seem to have had a similar upbringing. Nor are theories that some are born with a greater fragility sufficient. Why then are some born with a greater fragility? Today's psychology cannot explain this, emphasizes one respondent.
Well, you then claim that your behavior has an impact on life, and that what happened in childhood has an impact on how you become and how you are shaped. It's just that the one-life hypothesis sucks, and then you basically lose the explanatory value, I think... Childhood becomes too narrow.
In the interview responses, it is also expressed that what we get to experience is a mixture of things we have with us from previous lives and things that belong only to this life: "No, then you certainly have baggage with you too, apart from... But I think it is very strong imprinting when you grow up.” It can be difficult to know what is the background to why we experience an event the way we do or why we feel the way we do. However, some opportunities are given to investigate the reasons for this. One of the informants, who also has experience of having attended psychotherapy, says:
If it's that I get angry at things. But find out... But what IS what I'm getting angry about. Why do I get angry? Is it something from when I was little. Or what is that something. And there you can also go in from past lives and see what influences it.
Future care and terminology
The interviewees talk about experiences of many different types of treatment, both psychological and physical. Some of them are established, such as psychotherapy and hypnosis, while others are more unusual or alternative. Regression therapy/reincarnation therapy, relaxation exercises, guided fantasies, rose massage, light body therapy, HoloSync, etc.
Several of the respondents have experience of receiving so-called healing, and/or work with such things themselves. One of the respondents receives treatment with something called "plejahealing", where the therapist combines this technique with both reading the client's horoscope and giving home exercises:
But then, when you have found this problem, you can, with the help of this healing, go in and remove that programming... For example, there may be programming that you are worthless, because you have been told so from their parents all their lives. Then you remove that programming, and then you go in and, well, whatever needs to be done... if you need to repair cell memories, or something... But what she also does is that she combines it with CBT.
A type of help that appears in many places in the data material is visits to and/or treatments by people with medium abilities. Such persons can, for example, provide information about the clients' past lives. This differs from so-called regression therapy where it is the client himself who experiences and possibly sees images from previous incarnations. The medium can mediate contacts with dead relatives and friends, as well as provide information about now living people that the medium should reasonably know nothing about. A medium can have a "helper" who is on the spiritual side, possibly in another place on earth, whose insights the medium can share. The person acting as a medium may sometimes need to adapt the message to the client. It is important that the client has the conditions to understand and will not be harmed by what the media tells.
One respondent talks about healing with Christian signs, and she has translated certain words into something that fits her world of concepts better:
But this kind of healing in the name of Christ, you go in... If it's a mute, for example, you go in and say... Take that spirit away, then. And then that person starts talking again... And this kind of thing exists. If you believe in it, you can do it... Yes. And for me then, so that I then translate into my language, it becomes energies. Or blockages and energies then.
One interviewee underwent a period of hypnosis in order to be able to remember past lives: "Because then it's interesting. Because I think like this, that most people would need it, to lighten these LOCKS that hang on man."
There is also so-called transpersonal psychology, which one of the interviewees highlights as promising and in greater harmony with the spiritual perspectives. It is not enough to just talk about the unconscious in man, you then have to connect it to something bigger. Carl Gustav Jung is highlighted as an ideal:
But on the other hand... what differentiates this classic psychology is perhaps that you... well, Jung was aware that there was something more, he was a bit like this... But others only talk about the unconscious... but from there then disconnect it to something bigger... That when you are in direct contact with your true desires, then you also have a contact with God... Your will be done, not mine.
In the future, healing will be something people do on themselves, instead of going to a special healer for this. An interviewee believes that it is a parallel to how the development has been for the centers that organize meditation and yoga classes:
But maybe it's the same thing that this yoga and meditation storm came over Sweden. Then everyone would go to courses, meditate and do yoga. But now nobody goes to those courses anymore, because you do it at home instead. And maybe it will be the same with the healing, that people understand that everyone has that ability. You can do it yourself.
The Vidar clinic, which is run by the anthroposophists, is mentioned as an example of a healthcare facility with a commendable and interesting philosophy.