Customer Reviews

Exploration of the Inner World: A Study of Mental Disorder and Religious Experience

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A book that blew me away. Boisen had his first psychotic episode in 1918 and suspected it was a spiritual/religious crisis. In his day people were considered as write offs, lost and abandoned to sanitoriums for the rest of their lives if they showed any signs of mental illness. Boisen however, refused to live out this reality and instead began an amazing journey of discovery, to research other people's experience of psychosis and mental illness. Boisen's book outlines his paradigms and research results. While he was interviewing people in mental hospitals searching for evidence of a spiritual emergence/transendence psychiatrists of the period were supporting the removal of parts of people's bowels to 'cure them'.

I was amazed by Boisen's findings and think it is still incredibly relevant today. If you want to assist and understand someone experiencing psychological crisis read this book.

Much, much more could be said about this book, but suffice to say that this is a necessary read for anyone who has been diagnosed with bipolar or depression (or other mental illness), to help with understanding what Boisen calls one's attempt at "reorganization" that leads ultimately to either a religious experience (success) or to failure, which is described as illness. It is more compelling than most popular works, and much more clinical, even though it's dated.