Ep143: Psychiatry & Religious Experience - Dr Caroline Van Damme
Dr Caroline Van Damme is an adult psychiatrist and family and systemic psychotherapist specialising in chronic psychotic disorders, and co-teacher of Buddhist guru and Sowa Rigpa doctor Nida Chenagtsang.
Available on Youtube, iTunes, SoundCloud & Spotify – search ‘Guru Viking Podcast’.
Caroline discusses the cultural complexity of being raised in Belgium, how an early interest in the mind saw her train as a psychiatrist, and the reasons for her specialising in chronic psychosis.
Caroline also recounts her first encounters with Buddhism, including a meeting with a mysterious Lama, and the story of her collaboration with Dr Nida Chenagstang to train counsellors informed by both Western psychology and traditional Tibetan medicine.
Caroline draws on her professional experience to reveal rapport building skills for clinicians, as well as discussing religious experience as a form of psychosis, and the the pros and cons of the religious mind.
Topics include:
00:00 - Intro
01:01 - Upbringing in Catholic Belgium
05:25 - Interest in Buddhism & neuroscience and studying in America
09:51 - Training to become a psychiatrist
14:17 - Specialising in chronic psychosis
16:39 - Brussels Night Hospital
18:54 - Cultural complexity of Belgium
23:45 - Choosing clinical practice over a research career
30:11 - Discovering Buddhism and co-teaching with Dr Nida Chenagtsang
34:55 - An encounter with a Tibetan guru
40:01 - Meeting Dr Nida
44:32 - What so impressed Dr Caroline about Dr Nida?
50:13 - The healing relationship
53:22 - Attachment theory
58:54 - How to build trust with a patient
01:03:57 - How to cut through evasive small talk
01:07:33 - The #1 reason patients lose trust
01:12:56 - Insights into parenting and setting boundaries
01:20:38 - Transference and keeping your centre as a therapist
01:30:35 - Is religious experience a kind of psychosis?
01:44:56 - Religiosity as pathology
01:47:50 - Scientism as over-reach
01:50:55 - Religious abuses
02:06:09 - Personality disorders and meditation gone wrong
To find out more about Dr Van Damme, visit:
- https://www.sowarigpainstitute.org/dr-caroline-van-damme
Interviews with Dr Nida Chenagtsang:
https://www.guruviking.com/ep49-dr-nida-chenagtsang-heart-of-a-nomad/
https://www.guruviking.com/ep71-dr-nida-chenagtsang-karmamudra/https://www.guruviking.com/ep41-dr-nida-chenagtsang-pandemic-edition-guru-viking-podcast/
Music ‘Deva Dasi’ by Steve James