Catherine G. Lucas founded the Spiritual Crisis Network back in 2004, alongside a developmental committee of volunteers. Catherine experienced her own spiritual crisis which lead her to provide a platform of support for others.

SCN volunteers are experts through personal lived experienced of a spiritual crisis and mental health professionals, whilst some volunteers have both personal and professional expertise.

Our Vision:

• Promoting understanding and support of those going through profound personal transformation.

• To act as a resource providing help and information for; those going through or recovering from spiritual crisis, professionals, carers, supporters and researchers.

SCN Ethos

• The SCN does not endorse any particular spiritual or religious perspective. All are welcome!

• The SCN does not take an anti-medication or anti-psychiatry stance. We focus on what helps each individual.

• The SCN does not get involved in the debate about differential diagnosis. We aim to depathologise spiritual and anomalous experiences. Of course, individuals will hold their own views on these topics. However, it is important that the ethos above is reflected by the local peer-support group organisers.

SCN Objectives

a) promote the preservation of mental health and relieve the suffering and mental distress experienced by the public in the U.K. who are affected by spiritual crisis/emergency/anomalous experiences, in particular, but not exclusively, by providing peer-support, education and advice.

and

b) to reduce stigma and provide an alternative or complementary framework within which to understand and integrate spiritual crisis/emergency/anomalous experiences by advancing the education of the general public and health care professionals in the UK.

One of the ways we do this is by establishing local peer-support groups in the U.K. for experiencers and carers. We do this by providing start-up funds for local groups and training and guidance for group organisers. This provides a safe and open forum for people to share and discuss their spiritual and mental health issues with others.

Psychological or mental health difficulties may be experienced: if understood and supported appropriately, these experiences can be deeply transformative, offering the possibility of breakthrough rather than breakdown.

We recognise that:

• spiritual crisis and mental health difficulties often overlap

• people need information and support in their local area when in crisis

• the relationship between spirituality and mental health is complex

Religious and spiritual experiences have been shown to be benign, beneficial, even blissful experiences that are a natural part of being human (Hardy, 1979; James, 1902; Maslow, 1964). Although not everyone will have such an experience they have been shown to be present in the lives of many people in different cultures and in different historical periods (Badham & Yao, 2007; Rankin, 2008; Robinson, 2009). Unfortunately, a minority of these experiences can be unpleasant and distressing (Blackwell, 2011; Forman, 2011; Jakobsen, 1999; Mottram, 2014).

Spiritual crisis is often also referred to as ‘spiritual emergency’, ‘spiritual emergence’, (Grof, 1989; Lucas, 2011) ‘Kundalini awakening’ (Sannella, 1987), or ‘spiritual awakening’ (Assagioli, 1965; Taylor, 2010). In the U.S. spiritual crisis is provided for by the inclusion of ‘spiritual or religious problem’ in the Diagnostic & Statistical Manual 5 (DSM V) used by American psychiatrists (Lukoff, 1998; Bragdon, 1993). It is sometimes understood in a generic sense and applied to any major life or religious crisis, such as bereavement or loss of faith (Sperry, 2012). However, it is also used in a more specific sense to describe a range of unusual or anomalous experiences that cause concern, distress, or dysfunction in an individual’s life. This latter sense is that predominantly used by the SCN.

Catherine Lucas, the founder of the SCN, reports that the experience can make daily life very difficult for those going through it and result in unnecessary hospitalisation, isolation, and an inability to work. She lists its characteristics as: being very intense; difficult to cope with, causing confusion of inner and outer worlds, with pains and trouble sleeping and powerful emotions; a sense of loss or ego-death; ego-inflation; confused thinking; a sense of the importance of symbolism and myth; meaningful coincidences; seeing flashbacks or spirits; and feeling strong energies. This can include anomalous experiences such as kundalini, Near-Death Experiences (NDEs) and mystical states, amongst many others (Lucas, 2011).

The SCN understands spiritual crisis as a turbulent period of spiritual opening or transformation, where a process of spiritual emergence, or awakening, becomes unmanageable for the individual. Psychological or mental health difficulties may be experienced: if understood and supported appropriately, these experiences can be deeply transformative, offering the possibility of breakthrough rather than breakdown. As such the SCN represents an alternative or complementary approach to psychological ill-health in general and psychosis in particular. It parallels, and is allied to, other innovative approaches in mental health such as Peer-supported Open Dialogue (Seikkula & Olson, 2003; Seikkula et al, 2011) and the Hearing Voices Network (Romme et al, 2009). Spirituality has long been the preserve of transpersonal psychology but is now being championed by forward-thinking psychiatrists and other healthcare professionals (Cook et al, 2009 ; Razzaque, 2014).

Similar organisations to the SCN operate in other countries and a counselling centre has been established in Germany (Kramer et al, 2012). The International Spiritual Emergence Network (ISEN) seeks to act as an umbrella organisation at an international level. For a more detailed overview of the SCN see Rush (2013).

References

Assagioli, R. (1965) 1993. Psychosynthesis: A Collection of Basic Writings, London: Arkana.
Blackwell, S. (2011). Am I Bipolar or Waking Up?
Bragdon, E. (1993) 2006. Helping People with Spiritual Problems, Woodstock: Lightening Up Press.
Cook, C. Powell, A. & Sims, A. (2009). Spirituality and Psychiatry, London: The Royal College of Psychiatrists.
Forman, K.C. (2011). Enlightenment Ain’t What It’s Cracked Up To Be, Winchester: O Books.
Grof, S. & Grof, C. (1989). Spiritual Emergency: When Personal Transformation Becomes A Crisis, New York: Tarcher Putnam.
Hardy, A. (1979) 1997. The Spiritual Nature of Man: A Study of Contemporary Religious Experience, Oxford: Religious Experience Research Centre.
Jakobsen, M. (1999). Negative Spiritual Experiences: Encounters With Evil, RERC 3rd Series Occasional Paper #1, Lampeter: Religious Experience Research Centre.
James, W. (1902) 1982. The Varieties of Religious Experience, New York: Penguin.
Kramer, W. Bauer, E. & Hovelmann, G. (2012). Perspectives of Clinical Parapsychology, Bunnik: SHJBF.
Lucas, C. (2011). In Case of Spiritual Emergency: Moving Successfully Through Your Awakening, Forres: Findhorn Press.
Lukoff, D. (1998). From Spiritual Emergency to Spiritual Problem: The Transpersonal Roots of the New DSM-IV Category, Journal of Humanistic Psychology, 38, 2, 21-50.
Maslow, A. (1964) 1970. Religions, Values, and Peak-Experiences, New York, Penguin Compass.
Mottram, K. (2014). Mend The Gap: A Transformative Journey from Deep Despair to Spiritual Awakening, Rethink Press.
Rankin, M. (2008). An Introduction to Religious and Spiritual Experience, London: Continuum.
Razzaque, R. (2014). Breaking Down Is Waking Up: Can Psychological Suffering Be A Spiritual gateway? London: Watkins.
Robinson, J. (2009). Religious Experience in Tamilnadu, South India, Modern Believing The Journal of Theological Liberalism, 50, 2, 42-50.
Romme, M. Escher, S. Dillon, J. Corstens, D. & Morris, M. (2009) 2013. Living With Voices: 50 Stories of Recovery, Ross-on-Wye: PCCS Books.
Rush, M.J. (2013). Spiritual Crisis in the U.K., Journal for the Study of Spirituality, 3, 2, 168-171.
Sannella, L. (1987). The Kundalini Experience: Psychosis or Transcendence? Lower Lake: Integral Publishing.
Seikkula, J. & Olson, M. (2003). The Open-Dialogue Approach to Acute Psychosis: Its Poetics and Micropolitics, Family Process, 42, 3, 403-418.
Seikkula, J. Alakare, B. & Aaltonen, J. (2011). The Comprehensive Open-Dialogue Approach in Western Lapland: II. Long-term stability of acute psychosis outcomes in advanced community care, Psychosis, 1-13.
Sperry, L. (2012). Spirituality in Clinical Practice: Theory and Practice of Spirituality Oriented Psychotherapy, London: Routledge.
Taylor, S. (2010). Waking From Sleep: Why Awakening Experiences Occur and How to Make Them Permanent, London: Hay House.

For personal Spiritual Crisis support or if you have further questions please CONTACT US.

Thank you.

The SCN team.