The Reiki Cafe 

I want to help a woman who is diagnosed with schizophrenia and has been on medication for like 20 yrs. She;s not bad cuz shes not living in the hospital. Is there anything she could do to better herself without using pills... like any alternatives... energy therapies, reiki etc...?

Thanks

Bliss :)

Bliss,

/*\ Namaste :-}}

- if she is "competent", legally, to make decisions for herself regarding her health-care, then ask her if she will consult with her Psychiatirst or whomever is prescribibg her medications and following her case, to get advice about trying a session of Reiki

- if she has a legal guardian, and you should ask her, then the guardian's permission needs to be obtained before you do any energy work

- definitely do not meddle with her medications by suggesting that she might be able to do without them - that is for the prescribing Psychiatrist\physician to determine

- if she has been "managing" out in the world for 20 years by staying on her meds then that is what she probably needs to continue to do

- it might also be useful, if you end up doing some Reiki with her, to do so with the Psychiatrist\physician observing (if that could be arranged)

Reiki All Around,

All Blessings,

Firekeeper

well her gaurdian is her son, and yes I have talked to him and herself bout energy therapies and shes up for it. She mentioned reiki to her " social worker" or whomever takes care of her and they told her not to do it. that kinda confuses me becasue after reading "Natural Cures" by Mike Trudeau I have arised many questions bout doctors and prescriptions etc...

So i really dont knwo what the next step is. And from what I have heard, her son claims that with that medication shes only getting worse and they keep switching it, and re diagnosing her with different things. like first it was schizophrenia, than it changed to manic depression, and then back to schizophrenia.

It just sounds like shes a bunny rabbit.

Please do get back,

Bliss :)

Bliss,

/*\ Namaste :-}}

- switching meds is not a new thing - sometimes people develop secondary effects from prolonged use of the major pyschotropic drugs (tardive dyskinesthia being one) so some switching is done to forstall this - also newer drugs come out that might be given a trial run -

- the diagnosis issue is not new either but is, in some some respects, irrelevant to the matter of the decision making process and responsibility here

- if the legal guardian and the woman in question both feel a try of reiki might be 'enlightning' then they can make that decision and seek out a Reiki Master who will agree to work with them (social workers do not prescribe meds, as far as I know so I still urge that the prescribing physician be contacted)

- it is also important too that whomever does the Reiki tell them it is not a substitute for medications and that there is a slight possibilty that the woman may have an "unpleasant" experience" - remember, schizophrenics have major trouble interpetting their experiences which would include their experience of the Reiki

- hope this helps

Reiki All Around,

All Blessings,

Firekeeper

As a person with a psychiatric illness myself, I would strongly second Firekeeper's admonition to have her keep taking medication.

Her condition is a result of a chemical imbalance in the brain, and no amount of Reiki is going to change that. It may relax her, but it is certainly no substitute for psychiatric care.

I would also not mess around with herbs or any other "natural cures". It's too risky, and the consequences are too dire. So far as I know, no one has come up with a way sucessfully treat such illnesses except for medication.

Blessings,
Roxy

bliss,

You will have to excuse me if I seem to have overly strong opinions on this subject but I lived most of my life with a seriously mentally ill family member who refused any and all medical treatment.

Listen to what firekeeper and roxyart are saying.

If you work on this person at all her prescribing doctor needs to be contacted as well as her mental health professional if they are not the same person and get that permission from the guardian in writing.

Working with somene with this illness will be very tricky and personally I would not do it. If you aren't exceptionally qualified, don't screw around with this illness there could be repercussions that you aren't willing to live with.

Wanting to help is great but there are lots of ways you can do that without trying to do energy work if you seriously want to be of assistance. My bet is that it won't last long as most people can't/won't maintain a relationship with someone who has this illness even if they are on medication and 'mainstreamed'.

My best to all concerned

Walk in beauty,
Rebecca

Otoharo!

I appologize for being so late answering, my computer has been down. I want to share the information that Francisco Coll gave during his life here on earth. He is one of the spiritual overseers of earth. He taught us that there are four major kinds of people. These differences he called spiritual gifts and he related them to the passage in the bible I think it was Paul, who listed four spiritual gifts. He told us he knew this is what his contribution was going to be.

These four spiritual gifts correspond to the four elements: fire, water, earth, air. The characteristics of these people are that when out of balance, they produce these psychiatric symptoms: Fire out of balance becomes paranoid and may continue into catatonic state. Water is depression. Earth is neurotic. Air is somewhere in the direction of schizophrenic. These are only out of balance states. Correction sometimes can be attained by achieving persomality ballance. As I am an air person, I have experienced how this works. When I first went to a psychiatrist as a young mother, he diagnosed me as bordering on what he called (I can't pull up the word but is means having feelings very near the surface all the time) affective, or something like that. I was in therapy and had severe emotional reactions in my marriage. As it happened, my husband was actually sicker than I was and when I divorced him, I was able to heal myself through the process of therapy. (The spiritual gift of air people is prophetic, we can know the future)

Now that I am old, and do not have emotional hangups to deal with, reiki keeps me well focused and functional all the time. No emtional problems of any sort. I did not have reiki back when I was ill, but I can imagine that reiki would have assisted me greatly. (medication was not used then except for thorazine which was way too strong to be of benefit for me.)

What I want to emphasize is this matter of balance. Every human being has these tendencies when out of balance. the desire is to maintain emotional balance. And all is well with everyone!

finality

Otoharo!

I should have added, more details. Each of the four gifts also end to be more feeling in nature or thinking. Fire and earth are more thinking than feeling and water and air are more feeling. Air is expansive, earth is contractive ( that is tends to keep a stable form of some sort to life), water of course is pure feeling, empathic. Fire is so directed it is like an energy pointed toward a bull's eye. when I first detected this fire energy, I was shaking a person's hands as a part of a technique to discern energy. The energy in the palm of this person hit my palm like bullets directly in the center. Water people were hot. earth people were cool. air people of course felt to me just like my own palm. FC had us seated in four groups according to our priority energy (we each have all the four gifts). Then he had earth people which he called visionaries, stand before us and hold their hands so that their palms directed their energy to us. We could easily feel the cool almost cold draft from them. Water people were warm to hot.

The four gifts are visionary, earth; prophetic, air; feeler, water; and leadership, fire. It is easy to discern these characteristics in children which I experieced as a teacher at that time. A little fire person boy (first grade) always had to be first in line, but he was also very fair and thus would stand beside the child who was the leader other than him. Little water children are so geared to feelings in themselves and in others, they tended to be more in tune to their classmates than to whatever the subject was. Earth children tended to conform to the highest standards of conduct and abecame frustrated at another's disobedience. Air children were wool gatherers, daydreamers. I loved them all!

finality