Notes
- The term ‘disorder’ is used here with recognition of its imprecision, and in an attempt to avoid the controversies associated with the terms ‘disease’ and ‘illness’. It implies a recognizable constellation of symptoms, signs, or behaviours associated with distress and/or impairment of functioning. Social deviance or conflict alone do not, however, constitute sufficient basis for diagnosing such disorders. (World Health Organization, 1992, p. 5).
- This terminology belongs to Jones, and hence is used here. It is this writer's belief that any relationship of this sort with an ‘Ultimate Reality’ or ‘Absolute’ of the kind described renders the mystic as ‘object’ before the Ultimate ‘subject’.
- These are: good pre-episode functioning, acute onset of symptoms during a period of 3 months or less, stressful precipitants to the psychotic episode, and a positive exploratory attitude towards the experience (see p. 170).
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