Some of the signs and behavioural symptoms that the DSMIII-R (American Psychiatric Association, 1987) classifies under schizophrenia appear in individuals who may be experiencing a non-ordinary state of consciousness that is not indicative of mental disease. It is, rather, a potentially transformative state that can, with proper treatment, lead the individual through the crisis into a higher state of being. Christina and Stanislav Grof (1986) maintain that “these experiences – spiritual emergencies or transpersonal crises – can result in emotional and psychosomatic healing, creative problem-solving, personality transformation, and consciousness evolution.”
Selene Vega, 1989
