Spirituality and Mental Health

It is September, a season of new beginnings, the initiation of a fresh cycle. We just celebrated Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year. The children went back to school, the summer is waning and it’s getting dark earlier. Autumn is at the door. September is a time linked in my mind with the ancient mythic…

Did you know that the literal meaning of psychiatry is “healing of the soul”? The term was coined in France in 1846, “psychiatrie”, from Medieval Latin psychiatria;” a Latinized form of Greek psykhe- ”mind” + iatreia”healing, care. Does that ring a bell when it comes to psychiatric treatment in 2013? The tyranny of  “evidence based” psychiatry that is the current standard of…

In Western Astrology the planet Neptune is associated with transcendence of ordinary reality. Some concepts linked with Neptune include the sea, the unconscious, blurring of boundaries, spirituality, idealism, imagination, creativity, illusion and delusion, madness, confusion, sacrifice, glamor and the media, pollution and poison, escapism and addiction. Neptune’s orbit around the sun is approximately 164 years.…