Page 7 - NAMAH-Oct-2018

Editorial

The delusional thought-space and cosmic consciousness

A clinical dilemma between one’s religion of origin and the
other eulogised religion. The Muslim did
In a world torn by religious dissonance, not become a Hindu, the Hindu remained a
communal hatred and internecine conflicts, Hindu while the Jain subject after baptism
the delusional space in the psychotic thought- readily remained with his Jain family who
world appears to be an exception. Of course, were vegetarians.
the delusional space is a forbidden zone
and mental health professionals actually Reason and delusion
know very little of it. The schizophrenic
who exhibits social withdrawal and is not Clifford Beers, a recovered psychotic and
comfortable with inter-personal relationships pioneer of the mental hygiene movement in
can nevertheless continue to love someone USA explained in his treatise, A Mind that
in fantasy without the object of the love ever found itself, that during his mental illness,
being aware of it. It would be impossible to he suffered not from a loss of reason but
explain such an anomaly. reasoning from wrong premises (1). Yet the
premises on which the psychotic subjects
One very interesting clinical dilemma that could afford to eulogise a religion, considered
Indian psychiatrists experience at times is that to be a rival by one’s own immediate socio-
a psychotic subject belonging to a particular cultural group, cannot be labelled either as
religion can suddenly get into a state of frenzy unreasonable or as wrong. In fact, the problem
with another religion, which in a normal state gets accentuated if we try to analyse the
would have appeared blasphemous. Muslim delusional thought-process from the dichotomy
subjects suffering from psychotic spells of reasonableness and unreasonableness. One
can start extolling Hindu religious icons is reminded of Foucault’s anguish that the
while certain Hindu subjects in psychotic language of modern psychiatry is a monologue
states can get attracted to Islamic rituals. of reason about madness (2). One could
A subject diagnosed to be suffering from indeed agree with Roy Porter’s assertion that
paranoid schizophrenia and hailing from a a delusional thought-process could often be an
very conservative Jain background suddenly antithesis of the so-called civilised, holding a
had the bright idea of getting baptised to mirror to hypocrisy. (3)
Christianity.
Cultural commonality
What is interesting that in the psyche of the
delusional state, there is no contradiction The social anthropologist would consider

7