Dr. Andrew Powell:

"Medicine, including Psychiatry, is essentially spiritual when practiced as a true vocation"

We present in this issue a special interview with Dr. Andrew Powell, renowned British psychiatrist, of the Royal College of Psychiatrists in London. Dr. Andrew is an important collaborator at BUSS – The British Union of Spiritist Societies – in several events about medicine and spirituality done in the UK and a defender of the importance of it in the practice, mainly in the scope of Psychiatry. O Consolador: How long how have you been using the spiritual dimension in your work as a psychiatrist? All of medicine (including psychiatry) is essentially spiritual if it is practiced as a vocation. Yet frequently this is not

recognized or acknowledged, especially with the mechanistic view of disease which has characterised western medicine. When I began to realize that medicine is as much about healing as curing (including make ‘whole’ even unto death), I saw that spirituality can, and should be, an explicit aspect of good medical care.

O Consolador: How did it happen? Did anything special occur that marked this phase of your career?

After graduating, I first specialised in general medicine. This was exciting work for a young doctor as we battled with disease and did everything in our power to thwart death. But people died despite our best efforts and it raised deep questions for me about life and death. When I later chose psychiatry, death was just as much an issue but for a different reason, since depressed patients are often pre-occupied with death, not infrequently trying to take their own lives, and sometimes succeeding.

For some people, depressive disorder is biochemically driven, and when the right medication is taken, the pre-occupation with death melts away. But in my view, it is much more often attributable to emotional pain, made all the worse by an estrangement from soul.

After my general psychiatry training, I further specialised in analytical psychotherapy, individual and group. For problems that are essentially psychological in nature, these are appropriate therapies. But while psychoanalysis can teach one an enormous amount about oneself, it is no substitute for knowing oneself, which means to become aware of one’s (original) soul nature. When I moved on to train in psychodrama, and later, spiritual healing, I saw for myself the power in accessing the inherent wisdom of the ‘higher self’ or soul. After that, I became really interested in transpersonal (soul-centred) therapies, including past life regression and spirit release.

O Consolador: I know it is difficult to count but have you any idea of how many cases you have treated so far? 

I can’t answer the question this way, because spirituality in mental healthcare can be present in so many differing degrees and in so many ways, from the subtle (silently asking for guidance) through to specific approaches with suitable patients. (I should add that I have always aimed to work within the framework of spiritual values and beliefs that a patient brings. It is not our job to proselytize.)      

O Consolador:   What kind of reaction do the patients have about this type of treatment?

Again, I need to reframe the question, for there is no one type of treatment. But we are talking about ways of seeing one’s whole life and its purpose within a greater design. For some, this begins and ends with compassion, forgiveness and the altruistic desire to help others – be it family, nation or the whole human race. For others, it means looking at the life being lived in relation to the journey of the soul, its incoming agenda, what the challenges have been put here for, how the person would wish to feel about this life when it is completed, and so on. First, problems of the ego need to be addressed and then the way is clear for the bigger picture to emerge, one which will endow life with a rich and lasting meaning through to its completion.

O Consolador: Has anyone ever stopped treatment because of your spiritual views?

Every psychiatrist and psychotherapist has had patients drop out of treatment for various reasons. Particularly in psychotherapy, this can happen when the person realises that work is being asked of them (with help from the therapist) rather than the therapist holding the answer (the imagined cure). But I cannot think when my exploring spiritual concerns ever made a patient uncomfortable. It should not, for it is a respectful enquiry, with no right or wrong answers. One is helping a person find their truth. Often it leads to the big questions like, ‘why was I born, why must I suffer, what is it all for?’ In my experience, tactful exploration of these issues is welcomed. As I explained earlier, we progress to specific soul-centred approaches only if and when it mutually feels appropriate.

As part of taking the spiritual history, I may ask if a person believes that life begins with birth and ends with death. This is very important information. If the reply is something like ‘You probably think its silly but I do wonder if there is something afterwards’, I will say, ‘suppose there was, how do you imagine it might be?’ Often, this is all it takes to help someone begin to explore the spiritual dimension. (Patients are nervous of talking about such things with psychiatrists because they sense that many psychiatrists may be sceptical of such talk).

O Consolador: How do your colleagues react about your method of work?

I expect some think it is a lot of nonsense. But I am respectful of all the work my colleagues do, so long as it is done with care and concern. I enjoy building bridges where I can. Over the years, I have lost some friends and made new ones, but that is true for all walks of life. The main thing is not to worry about what some people will think but to try to act in good conscience.  

O Consolador: Are there many doctors trying to unify Medicine and Spirituality? Why, in your opinion, this connection is still so unaccepted by so many professionals?

To this day, doctors are trained in the mechanistic (Newtonian) model of science, despite all the 20^th century discoveries of relativity, quantum mechanics and recently, string (M) theory. But intuitively, many doctors and other healthcare professionals know it misses the mark, and I am optimistic that the climate has begun to change, and can change greatly. It will only happen, I think, as part of the wider evolution of human consciousness. I suspect that in this regard, the 21^st century will crucially be ‘make or break’ in the history of our species.

I started the Spirituality and Psychiatry Special Interest Group in the Royal College of Psychiatrists in 1999, initially with the minimum 120 signatures required. Now we have 2000 UK psychiatrists in the group (www.rcpsych.ac.uk/spirit). Most will simply have an interest in spirituality – it does not mean they are trained in psycho-spiritual approaches – but nevertheless, it represents 1 in 7 UK psychiatrists, and that is a good start. The Royal College has been supportive of our work and there is a College leaflet on mental health and spirituality on the topics menu on its homepage (www.rcpsych.ac.uk). We have had a lot of positive feedback from mental health service users who have been encouraged to see that psychiatry can acknowledge and value spirituality. We have also had a book commissioned by the College on ‘Spirituality and Psychiatry’, which we hope will be published later this year.

O Consolador: When did you first become aware of the Spiritist doctrine?

Probably around 15 years ago.

O Consolador: Have you read any Spiritist books?

Yes. Allan Kardec’s ‘The Spirits’ Book’, ‘The Mediums’ Book’, ‘The Gospel according to Spiritism’, and a number of others such as Divaldo Franco’s ‘Obsession’, and Francisco Xavier’s ‘Nosso Lar’.

O Consolador: Have the books helped you in any way?

I always feel uplifted and nourished by reading and learning more about Spirit, so these books have been a valued part of my fairly extensive reading over the years. My own feeling is that because of the limited nature of the human intellect – wonderful organ though the brain is – all that we can know while incarnated about Spirit is necessarily passed through a filter, so to speak.  I like the quantum view that life on earth is but one of a multiplicity of ‘virtual realities’. The main strand to this, for me, is that when spirit manifests as form, we are compelled to have relational (and therefore emotional and developmental) challenges, and this is for the advancement of Soul.

O Consolador: Do you believe that there is a link between the work developed by you and what the Spiritist doctrine teaches?

I am interested in all the established faith traditions; Christianity, Buddhism and Daoism have influenced me greatly. What I most value about the Spiritist doctrine is its profound spiritual ethic and essential humility. Yet, I would like to add that all spiritual paths lead the same way, just as all rivers flow to the sea.

O Consolador: If your answer is yes in what points do they converge?

We are in the same estuary!

O Consolador: At the Seminar organized by BUSS last June, Divaldo Franco joked that you are in fact a Spiritist, what is your answer to that?

Sharing the day with Divaldo was a great privilege for me. I felt that it was a loving encounter of souls. Perhaps everyone who meets Divaldo feels the same, but I was very moved.

O Consolador: Last year BUSS organized the First Congress on Medicine and Spirituality in which you were one of the lecturers. What was your view of that event?

I enjoyed taking part and I really liked the whole atmosphere of the occasion. There were interesting clinical and research presentations. I felt that the broad theme gave the conference an inclusive feel to it, which I think is important if BUSS is to find a broader-based profile in the UK.  

O Consolador: You will be co-chairperson at the forthcoming Congress in October “Working with the Soul in Illness and Health”. What do you expect the Congress to achieve?