I write about mental health, psychosis, altered states, trauma, yoga therapy, nervous system regulation, philosophy, spirituality and the many ways people find their way back to themselves. My work lives at the meeting point of psychiatry, psychology, yoga, ancient wisdom traditions and what I call Original Medicines: the practices, relationships, rhythms and ways of knowing that reconnect us with body, community, nature and meaning. After more than 25 years working in mental health as a psychiatric nurse, therapist and yoga therapist, I’m especially interested in what becomes possible when we widen the conversation beyond diagnosis and symptom reduction — without losing discernment, safety or good clinical care. Through Terrapy, I work with individuals and groups and teach healthcare professionals, therapists and others who care. I also share reflections from my books, research, conversations, trainings and the questions I’m currently exploring.If you’re curious about a broader, more humane and integrative approach to mental health and healing, you’re very welcome!
Why this free summit exists (a 1967 paper explains it)
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Dear Reader In 1967, psychologist Julian Silverman published a paper with a curious title: Shamans and Acute Schizophrenia. It's a question close to the heart of the online summit coming up: what happens when people move through reality-altering experiences that the world around them understands completely differently? Silverman argued the real difference wasn't only what happened inside the person, but what happened around them. Was there a cultural map?
Or was it met primarily as evidence that something had gone terribly wrong?! In practice, it may look the same on the surface: hearing voices, sensing information from beyond ordinary time and space, the dissolution of a fixed sense of self... What differs is the perception. In The Netherlands, or any state of the US, that gets you a label and a prescription. In South Africa, Peru, or Tibetan Buddhism, the same experience can become the beginning of an initiation — because those cultures carry a lineage to catch a person. I don't think shamanic states and psychosis are simply the same thing — later scholars pushed back on that comparison too. But one question underneath that old paper still feels incredibly alive to me: "How much does the way we receive an altered state, shape what it becomes?" This is exactly the kind of question I want us to bring into the online summit that starts October 15th. Not one explanation. Not psychiatry or spirituality. But psychiatry, lived experience, animism, and ritual — meeting each other, finding common ground.
October 15–18 · Live · Online · Free. Recorded if you cannot join all days. And if someone immediately came to mind while reading this, please share this message with them. This summit isn't something I want to create for people from a distance. I want us to build the conversation together! With love, Anneke & The Summit Team Wisdom of Psychosis | Terrapy Press p.s. Read the (lengthy) article Shamans and Acute Schizophrenia here if you're curious. |
Terrapy | The Original Medicines
I write about mental health, psychosis, altered states, trauma, yoga therapy, nervous system regulation, philosophy, spirituality and the many ways people find their way back to themselves. My work lives at the meeting point of psychiatry, psychology, yoga, ancient wisdom traditions and what I call Original Medicines: the practices, relationships, rhythms and ways of knowing that reconnect us with body, community, nature and meaning. After more than 25 years working in mental health as a psychiatric nurse, therapist and yoga therapist, I’m especially interested in what becomes possible when we widen the conversation beyond diagnosis and symptom reduction — without losing discernment, safety or good clinical care. Through Terrapy, I work with individuals and groups and teach healthcare professionals, therapists and others who care. I also share reflections from my books, research, conversations, trainings and the questions I’m currently exploring.If you’re curious about a broader, more humane and integrative approach to mental health and healing, you’re very welcome!
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