The Shamanic View of Mental Illness In the shamanic view, mental illness signals “the birth of a healer,” explains [African Dagara Elder] Malidoma Patrice Somé. Thus, mental disorders are spiritual emergencies, spiritual crises, and need to be regarded as such to aid the healer in being born.
What those in the West view as mental illness, the Dagara people regard as “good news from the other world.” The person going through the crisis has been chosen as a medium for a message to the community that needs to be communicated from the spirit realm.
“Mental disorder, behavioral disorder of all kinds, signal the fact that two obviously incompatible energies have merged into the same field,” says Dr. Somé. These disturbances result when the person does not get assistance in dealing with the presence of the energy from the spirit realm... (Click here for more]
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There have been Western thinkers who have posed similar perspectives although less "spiritual" and more social constructivist. They do agree, however, that there is a message for society within mental illness and the prevailing society doesn't want to be questioned. We might see mental institutions as social prisoners similar to political prisoners with this perspective.