Psychiatric Disorders and Spirituality — Spotify from the CEC Library

Moisés, my sister suffers from panic disorder and has not left her home for several months. Fátima replies, "It is very serious." Because I believe in spirituality, I think this problem may result from spiritual interference. Do you think I could take her to receive energy passes? Would that help? What you are saying is that she has suffered from panic disorder for several months and does not leave her home. Let me tell you what I think: I believe that every difficulty, especially a spiritual one, begins in the emotional dimension. Human beings create internal conditions and situations that grow worse and then have repercussions in the external dimension; in other words, the companions you acquire reflect everything you have been creating for yourself.

You can create very good and happy things, as well as very bad ones. Or you may navigate the middle ground: sometimes you are better, sometimes worse, and all of this happens according to our thoughts, our emotions, and what we sow each day. Therefore, it is a good idea to examine the actual family structure and how it developed. If there is a very poor pattern of relationships, fears, threats, and aggression in your home, you can indeed develop panic disorder.

Our difficulties originate when we are in our closest relationship with our father and mother, at an age when we have neither a defensive structure nor a structure for questioning life. We take in whatever comes to us. It is a time of learning: in the first years of life, you learn new things and, later, over time, either confirm those things or not.

Depending on what happens, you may accumulate fears that transform into others and extend to various situations. This culminates in panic disorder, which is the sum of many fears; consequently, anything may trigger this internal reaction. Sometimes there is no external stimulus, but internally you enter a suffocating condition without knowing what is happening, and you may become paralyzed, unable to speak or do anything.

For example, one of my patients was once on the subway and suddenly had a panic attack even though nothing was happening. She was simply walking, did not know what to do, and could not act; she picked up her cell phone and called. At that moment, she was in a full-blown crisis, and I spoke with her, calming her and showing her what was around her because, in panic disorder, when the crisis or episode occurs, the person loses contact with reality.

That is why you enter the worst of places, which is your imagination; if that imagination is not positive, it becomes negative, makes things worse, and then it becomes very difficult to manage yourself. Your ego has no organized structure for putting things in their proper place and allowing you to say, "Look, okay, it is none of that." You cannot do that. That is why it is panic. Panic is the ego's total disorganization; in other words, you have just lost yourself. What is outside is not even very threatening, but what is inside is a monster you cannot control.

This begins as an emotional process and then becomes a spiritual process. It is very good and comfortable for those primitive spirits who have nothing to do in life except absorb the energy of people who have some difficulty and remain close to those with panic. They provoke situations in which you keep getting worse. Worse still, when you have a panic attack, you become afraid of having another one, adding yet another fear. Imagine how this manifests: suppose that you are walking downtown and suddenly have a panic attack.

The next time you go downtown, you will already be afraid of both the panic attack and downtown itself. The fears accumulate, becoming emotional and then spiritual. The spirits close to you take advantage of this situation because fear makes us exteriorize energy to defend ourselves, leaving us weak. They feed on that energy. That is why, when something frightens you, you feel a chill in your stomach: at that moment, you have projected energy into the environment to protect yourself, and your stomach actually becomes cold.

Therefore, receiving energy passes is a good idea. Energy passes can be very healthy if the person practices them daily; she should receive them continually because the spirituality nearby tends to retreat. By receiving energy passes every day, she moves these energies, and the spirits need to make a great effort to capture energy. Consequently, it becomes more complicated for them.

However, the emotional dimension also has to be treated. You see, if you treat the spiritual dimension and do not heal the source—the person's own internal contradiction, turbulence, and everything else—you have not resolved it. So, you ask whether it would help; the answer is yes. But if you want the person to truly become well, it will be necessary to treat her emotional dimension, which I consider the source of these physical difficulties. The emotional dimension eventually affects the body, generating somatizations, and the spiritual dimension is also affected.

I would like to know whether a baby can have depression. My son is not like other children his age; I used to think it was simply his way of being, but he is quieter and I am afraid that he may have depression because he is very apathetic. I have depression and take medication, and my mother also has the condition, which made me wonder whether it could be hereditary.

Do you know what depression is? Depression is a global loss of vitality that leaves a person completely without energy. Can a baby have depression? Yes. Most emotional disorders and difficulties can begin in childhood. A person may become psychotic in childhood, although it seems uncommon. If a child is part of a family with serious emotional difficulties, those difficulties will certainly be passed on to the child. A child is much more vulnerable to the environment than an adult because the child has not yet developed the emotional defensive barrier and ability to question that make it possible to say "no" to certain situations.

The child recognizes and accepts the situation and may indeed have depression. In this case, it is necessary to seek a specialized professional. You can, for example, explain that your baby does not speak yet and describe his behavior so that the professional can assess it. What you describe is entirely possible.

Therefore, I think you have to take care of it because a child with depression has a very difficult life. In fact, I think that anyone with depression should not postpone healing but should seek help. Men take much longer; a man has to be in a terrible situation before asking for help. When a woman feels depressed, she seeks help more quickly, which truly helps resolve some issues. Therefore, if you have depression, seek help because it is important to care for your life, your health, and your history.

Is obsessive-compulsive disorder difficult to cure? I would like to know whether spiritual treatment combined with therapy would resolve the problem more quickly. First, I will explain what obsessive-compulsive disorder, known as OCD, is. A person with this disorder has various repetitive habits and begins buying things compulsively. Someone who likes chocolate, for example, feels the need to eat chocolate and cannot control the urge, searching for places that have chocolate or stores that sell it and feeling compelled to eat it. The person cannot manage the urge. When the habit involves shopping, the person repeatedly buys similar items—shoes, handbags, belts, rings, and blouses.

A person with the disorder buys things repeatedly and is not satisfied. It is characterized as a disorder because the person cannot manage the situation internally. You may buy a handbag or a pair of shoes that you truly need. The problem is having just bought a pair of shoes two days earlier, seeing another style, and feeling the need to buy again without being able to contain the impulse. That is why it is a compulsion, and it has to be addressed.

The obsessive aspect consists of sudden thoughts that appear seemingly out of nowhere, from the depths of the mind, and the person begins thinking about various things that are unrelated to one another. The person imagines, continues imagining, and creates an endless chain of thoughts in an attempt to resolve something within. This attempt consumes an incredible amount of energy because the person cannot stop. The person simply keeps thinking and thinking, and the imagination has no limits. As a result, the person feels extremely drained; when this type of OCD behavior occurs, repetitive habits emerge and do not cease. These habits never end.

When passing through a certain place, the person needs to perform a specific action. I remember a movie in which the main character had to touch certain points; as he walked, he needed to step inside the squares. This compulsion, which I have seen on television, is quite curious. A television host reported that if he touched a person on one side, he then had to touch the other side. For example, when entering an elevator, he touched it with one shoulder and, so as not to remain unbalanced, needed to touch it with the other shoulder.

The situation became very difficult; he could not manage himself. That is obsessive-compulsive disorder. He said that once he entered an elevator and bumped into someone, then tried to touch the person with his other shoulder. The other person looked at him and asked, "What is this? What is happening?" Thus, difficult situations arise. Now you ask me whether spiritual treatment combined with therapy would resolve it. I believe that this is a valid path; therapy helps a person better understand the origin of the situation. It often arises from childhood issues related to contact with one's father and mother, sexuality, and physical contact—aspects that the person cannot manage. Therefore, combining therapy with spiritual treatment can be an enlightening approach.

In spiritual treatment, for example, receiving only an energy pass does not work. You have to receive spiritual enlightenment in order to understand how these things work. This is because, when you have obsessive-compulsive disorder, it is not only the emotional dimension that is affected; your spiritual world is also affected, and you are surrounded by companions whose behavior is more or less the same as yours. We associate with those who are like us.

You can write this down: we associate with those who are like us. The first person like you is you yourself, and the rest is the bonus that you will receive from your life because they come along with you. It is no use being a person who has very negative thoughts and then invoking an angel and saying, "Now the angel will heal me." No; you associate with those who are like you, so you have to heal yourself. Healing ourselves is hard work because changing someone else and pointing at someone else are easy, but pointing at yourself and making changes in your own life are more difficult. Therefore, therapy and spiritual treatment are good ideas.