I have the
DSM-5, the American Psychiatric Association’s "bible", "
a standard reference for clinical practice in the mental health field" - from the Preface, which came out in May 2013. The last, DSM-IV, was in 1994. There's a chapter in DSM-5, p. 715,
Other Conditions That May Be a Focus of Clinical Attention, but they then say, “
The conditions and problems listed in this chapter are not mental disorders” – important to bear in mind.
There’s a small section in this chapter, p.725,
Problems Related to Other Psychosocial, Personal and Environmental Circumstances and under this section V62.89 (Z65.8).
Religious or Spiritual Problem.
It goes, "
This category can be used when the focus of clinical attention is a religious or spiritual problem. Examples include distressing experiences that involve loss or questioning of faith, problems associated with conversion to a new faith, or questioning of spiritual values that may not be related to an organized church or religious institution." In this 947 page work there is no mention of alien abduction experiences but this is the relevant section for them. Why?
Well, this is a whole book (I’ve just got this from Amazon) devoted to
Religious and Spiritual Issues in Psychiatric Diagnosis: A Research Agenda for DSM-V (2011) also published by the American Psychiatric Association and has a section on alien abductions, p. 185-187. This is in Section 8 in DSM-IV Religious and Spiritual Problems by Profs. Lukoff, Lu and Yang.
http://www.appi.org/searchcenter/pages/SearchDetail.aspx?ItemId=2658#
What is in this Section 8? Let’s take the above wording, which is relevant, "
questioning of spiritual values that may not be related to an organized church or religious institution" and into this they put
mystical experiences, near-death experiences, psychic experiences, alien abduction experiences, meditation and spiritual practice-related experiences and possession experiences.
In the references to do with abductions are
John Mack (Passport to the Cosmos -1999), N Spanos et. al., T Bullard, S Appelle.
However if you now Google
DSM-IV Religious and Spiritual Problems you get a course run by Prof. David Lukoff with 9 references to
John Mack (and Passport to the Cosmos) and I think is from 2000. This is also on the John E Mack Institute website.
Since
DSM-IV Religious and Spiritual Problems with the alien abduction section is in this 2011 book
Religious and Spiritual Issues in Psychiatric Diagnosis: A Research Agenda for DSM-V, therefore AA’s are a subject of present study (one would guess). At the end of each chapter of this book, two Commentary letters are given (which seem to be supporting letters) by other academics and two are given for Lukoff, Lu and Yang’s DSM-IV Religious and Spiritual Problems. I just think the first of the two is remarkable by Prof. Bruce Scotton (and he mentions UFOs), esp. this "
If the purpose of spirituality boils down to the attempt to foster the ongoing development of human beings, an encounter with a more developed species would be an encounter with a spiritually evolved entity.” (does he know this I wonder?) Also he says alien encounters are a “
nonpathological V code entry” and isn’t this what John Mack was saying all along, that there is basically nothing wrong, apart from post-traumatic, with experiencers? But I just think that WHOLE last paragraph by Prof. Scotton is very, very interesting and deserves careful reading.
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=...-IV religious and spiritual problems"&f=false
I’m sure these words are chosen very carefully and have a lot of meaning especially as abduction experiences have changed some people’s spiritual outlook on life. I think the above abduction section in “DSM-IV RSP” in
Religious and Spiritual Issues in Psychiatric Diagnosis: A Research Agenda for DSM-V has “officially” vindicated John Mack in that his work is now part of mainstream science to do with psychiatrists helping experiencers who have undergone real events. I also didn’t find any references in the above to David Jacobs.
(Just with ref. to my previous comment on Dr. John B. Alexander’s book UFOs: Myths, Conspiracies and Realities and comments about John Mack he also says there is something physical as well to abductions.)
Finally if UFOs (UAPs) are real (i.e. basically aliens) and people are having encounters with them, what’s going on? What for? Why spirituality? How high up the “spiritual food chain” does it go? This all seems to be a vindication also of spirituality as non-pathological, alien encounter experiences as non-pathological (and spiritual/physical) and underwriting what Alexander says in his book, where he mentions, p. 249, “
the commonalities between near-death experiences and alien abduction”.
So although the huge and new
DSM-5 (2013) has a small section, just 4 lines, on
Religious or Spiritual Problem, when you look closer at a related publication which has been out for two years there is research on abductions and courses being taught for professionals on this. In the light of all this I can’t understand why there’s a dismissal of spiritual alien abduction accounts.