Increasingly, evidence points to the growing issue of spiritual emergencies being wrongly labeled as pathologies. Researchers such as Stanislav and Christina Grof have explored this phenomenon extensively, suggesting that it remains a field in constant development with ongoing research. There are gaps in research that, if identified, may bring new insights into spiritual crisis and how to treat the crisis in a psychotherapeutic way. The psychologist Roberto Assagioli asserted that those on a spiritual path could also suffer from a spiritual crisis because they become over-absorbed in the spiritual experiences they continually seek. It is because of this overuse and the desire for these experiences that psychological imbalances become a potential problem. Thus, there is potential for spiritual crisis with spiritual seekers or those who are forced into a spiritual experience. In particular, grief can also become a potential for spiritual crisis and one does not have to suffer from prolonged grief disorder, which is a labeled as a pathology by psychologists and psychiatrists.
Grief as a gateway to spiritual crisis
The experience of grief is often dismissed as a psychological process with emotional expressions, but what if grief is also a catalyst for profound spiritual transformation? Perhaps it is a grave mistake to pathologise something that can, in fact, be transformational. When we lose someone dear to us, the rupture is not just emotional. It fractures our understanding of reality, identity and even our connection to existence itself. As a consequence, we become disconnected from who we really are. This is where grief transcends the conventional boundaries of mourning and enters the realm of spiritual crisis.
My personal grief journey
In my journey through loss, I found myself caught in a liminal space. An alternate space at one where the presence of the departed felt both absent and profoundly tangible. It was a paradox that defied conventional models of bereavement. The pain was not just in the heart; it was in the very fabric of my being, unravelling everything I once believed to be true. Was I merely experiencing an expected grief response, or was I undergoing a spiritual emergency? In reality, I suffered the loss of many close family and friends in such a short space of time. This profound loss exacerbated my own grief and I had to conclude that I was suffering a spiritual crisis. The very fabric of my spiritual reality was shattered and I questioned my own connection. The disconnection that was felt internally became my personal spiritual crisis and I felt loneliness at a level that was unsurpassed.
For many, grief becomes a doorway into the unknown, where the structures that once held life together dissolve. In this collapse, the psyche may seek meaning and this quest often leads to encounters with transpersonal experiences – impressions, synchronicities, or even spontaneous mediumistic episodes. While some may frame these occurrences as mere coping mechanisms, others find them to be initiatory moments, forcing a radical re-evaluation of consciousness. This becomes the catalyst to a transformational episode.
Pathologising grief
Mainstream psychology, with its rigid diagnostic frameworks, often cannot accommodate the complexity of these experiences. Instead, prolonged grief disorder or bereavement-related phenomena are pathologised, treated as disorders rather than transformations. This is where the issue deepens: By labelling these experiences as mere psychological disturbances, we risk severing individuals from the very process that could lead to profound personal and spiritual growth.
Could it be that grief, when allowed to unfold naturally, serves as an initiatory process – one that not only reshapes the self but also alters one’s understanding of existence itself? And if this is the case, how do we reframe our approach to grief so that we honour its transformative potential rather than suppressing it with clinical interventions?
Grief, like any altered state of consciousness, requires discernment. Just as the medium who reached out to me struggled with her transpersonal experience, those grieving may also find themselves in states of altered perception that require guidance rather than diagnosis. What if we began to treat grief not as something to ‘recover’ from, but as a path that demands integration?
This opens a new line of inquiry: Could grieving itself induce the same transpersonal crisis observed in mediums, mystics and those undergoing spiritual emergencies? And if so, how might we redefine the landscape of bereavement care to include a more holistic, spiritually informed approach? This approach is one that does not reduce the profound experience of loss to a set of symptoms, but honours it as a sacred passage. We can learn so much from our indigenous brothers and sisters.
We often pathologise something we do not understand, such as schizophrenia. However, a schizophrenic could actually experience a transformative journey and its catalyst could have occurred because of an aspect of grief. It does not mean that grief is only about the loss of a loved one or a deceased individual. Grief can express itself in many aspects of life. The problem is that we cannot recognise the potential or the mechanics of the experience. Those who counsel, or who offer therapy may also fail to recognise the expressions as a spiritual crisis.
Is it a spiritual emergency or spiritual emergence?
This presents a serious issue over the ability to discern not only if it is a spiritual emergency by the therapist but also highlights the imbalance in discernment from the professional. What may present as a possible psychosis or mental imbalance may actually be a spiritual emergence. Spiritual emergence is a natural process in which an individual experiences an accelerated expansion of consciousness, often marked by profound insights, heightened perception, or mystical experiences. When this process becomes overwhelming or destabilising, it can develop into a spiritual emergency, where the individual struggles to integrate these experiences into their daily life. Researchers such as Stanislav and Christina Grof have explored this phenomenon extensively, suggesting that it remains a field in constant development with ongoing research. I prefer my own term, aptly called Spiritual Personal Interventionist Integration or SPII. More about this in a follow-up article.
This misinterpretation of pathology supports the assumption made by Dr Assagioli and is further corroborated by researchers like David Lukoff, PhD, who asserts that this potential spiritual emergency could be misinterpreted and labelled as a serious pathology. Ken Wilber, one of Grof’s greatest critics, also agreed that the model warranted further research as mystical or peak experiences, as described by Abraham Maslow, were often wrongly pathologised as psychosis.
This is because of a lack of discernment and therefore requires appropriate psychotherapeutic intervention. The problem lies in the absence of empirical evidence for a possible parapsychological phenomenon that could blend transpersonal experiences with parapsychological explanation and offer a path to integration.
Grieving as a gateway to transformation
This leads me to my research, where grief, willful possession, influence and the altered state could be the catalyst to psychosis and potential schizophrenic episodes. This distinction further reinforces the idea that grief can serve as a catalyst for transformation, rather than merely a pathological state. Individuals experiencing spiritual experiences, spirit influence or parapsychological phenomena often report significant shifts in perception, emotional depth and even heightened states of awareness. These are elements that align more with transformational processes than with psychiatric disorders. Understanding these occurrences through a broader lens of spiritual crisis rather than pathology allows for a more integrative approach to healing and growth, supporting the notion that grief is not merely an affliction to be treated, but a journey that reshapes one’s understanding of reality itself.
It is also a potential area of future research to identify spiritual emergency by researching the transformational experiences of the grief journey. There is a very high potential to gain empirical evidence through direct recording of evidential phenomena. This is an area that needs more of a developmental approach to research, which does not allow for empirical evidence. A more experiential approach would allow a deeper understanding of grief as a transformational process.
Transpersonal psychology has advanced understanding of spiritual emergency. There are gaps, including limited empirical evidence and mislabelling spiritual emergencies as pathologies. Integrating phenomenological and empirical methods could enhance understanding of phenomena like spirit intrusion and willful possession. Grief after all, can be your greatest nemesis or your greatest teacher.
