Transforming Extraordinary Experiences Into the Concept of Schizophrenia: A Case Study of a Norwegian Psychiatric Unit

Abstract

The dominating paradigm in Western psychiatry is grounded in biomedical thinking, and biological explanations appear to increasingly take the lead. There has been a shift from a psychological approach to the treatment of such experiences to a biomedical framework, with medication and medicine compliance at its core. Patients diagnosed with schizophrenia often tell about extraordinary experiences, such as encounters with UFOs and angels. Drawing upon data collected during 8 months of fieldwork in a Norwegian psychiatric rehabilitation clinic, we explore the translation, transformation and transition of such experiences into psychiatric terminology based upon biomedical knowledge and understanding. We approach these issues with extended reference to a particular patient’s experiences, which appeared to represent a fairly typical scenario at this Norwegian and other treatment units. We take a close view into how a patient in a psychiatric rehabilitation unit explains and interprets his extraordinary experiences, how he perceives the manner in which his experiences are confronted by professionals within the psychiatric field of knowledge, and how these phenomena are explained and handled by professionals. The article closes with some indications of potential consequences of employing a different approach to extraordinary experiences.

Coercion in a locked psychiatric ward

“…To be able to reduce coercive practices and emphasize an experience-based service, the National Centre of Experienced-Based Knowledge in Norway promotes the need for new knowledge (3). This means taking the patients' own experiences into account, including them as equal human beings, and seeing beyond a concept of knowledge based merely on objectivity (3)(4)(5).…”

The smoking‐room as psychiatric patients' sanctuary: a place for resistance

“…The medical paradigm constitutes the major approach to hospital treatment for psychiatric inpatients (Therkelsen et al. 2005).…”

User participation when using milieu therapy in a psychiatric hospital in Norway: a mission impossible?

“…Third, milieu therapy is a relationship‐based intervention in which one emphasizes the interpersonal interactions between the nurse and the patient, to gain therapeutic effects (Holmes 1971; Peplau 1985/1994; Delaney 1997; Vatne and Hoem 2008). There are even some psychiatric nursing scientists who recommend that the relationships between the patient and the nurse therapist should become more equal, based on friendship and mutual understanding (Hummelvoll and Severinsson 2001b; McCann and Baker 2001; Terkelsen, Blystad, and Hydle 2005).…”