Psychosis and transformation: A phenomenological inquiry

Conventional views towards psychosis typically portray psychosis as an illness of the brain with a generally poor prognosis, even if treated with antipsychotics. However, there is a growing body of literature which presents an alternative view of psychosis, whereby people are not only able to recover from psychosis, but can also experience transformative and/or spiritual growth through psychosis. To learn more about the transformative potential of psychotic experiences, a phenomenological approach was used to research the experiences of six people who self-identified as having benefited from psychosis in a spiritual and/or transformative manner. Keys themes emerging from interviews with these six individuals included in the pre-psychosis phase “childhood foreshadowing” and “negative childhood events,” and in the psychosis phase, “sudden psychosis,” “psychic/intuitiveness and unusual visual experiences,” “comprised day-to-day functioning,” “experiences of dying,” and “communication with god.” Four themes made up the transformation of psychosis phase including “detachment and mindfulness,” “accepting the dissolution of time into now,” “embracing a spiritual pathway,”“ and ”re-alignment of career path.“ Overall, the results suggest that at least for some individuals, the experience of psychosis can be an important catalyst for spiritual and personally transformative growth.