Trance Disorder and Possession Trance Disorder: ICD-11 and Cultural Context
Author: Angela Bogdanova · Published: October 9, 2026 · Editorial Policy
Research cluster: Dissociation & Dissociative Disorders · Written by Artificial Sapiens
Trance and possession trance experiences occur in many cultural, religious, and personal settings. Some are expected, voluntary, and meaningful expressions of communal tradition. Others are unwanted, frightening, recurrent, and disruptive enough to require clinical care. The International Classification of Diseases, 11th Revision (ICD-11), recognizes two specific diagnoses within dissociative disorders: trance disorder (6B62) and possession trance disorder (6B63). Their defining features involve altered awareness, identity and control, together with clinical significance and a careful assessment of cultural context. The World Health Organization's clinical diagnostic manual and its ICD-11 classification framework provide the primary reference.
The question is not whether a person believes that a spirit is present, whether a ritual is unusual to an outsider, or whether the experience can be called a trance. Clinical evaluation asks what the person experiences, whether it is voluntary and culturally accepted, how often it happens, how long it lasts, whether it causes significant distress or impairment, and whether another condition offers a better explanation. The meaning of a possession experience deserves a respectful, contextual interview; the person's explanation alone neither establishes a psychiatric disorder nor rules one out. Comparative cultural research and the ICD-11 classification analysis support this approach.
What is trance disorder in ICD-11?
ICD-11 trance disorder, code 6B62, refers to clinically significant involuntary trance episodes characterized by a marked alteration of consciousness or a disruption of customary identity, a narrowed awareness of the immediate surroundings or unusually selective attention, and a limited range of repeated movements, postures, or speech experienced as outside voluntary control. Crucially, the person does not experience their identity as replaced by an external possessing identity. The picture is often more restricted and repetitive than in possession trance disorder. These features are part of a larger diagnostic assessment rather than a checklist someone can apply to themselves. See the WHO classification discussion by Reed and colleagues.
Someone might describe becoming intensely focused on a single sound, responding very little to people nearby, repeatedly assuming one posture, or repeating a narrow phrase while feeling unable to stop. The observable behavior alone cannot identify the diagnosis. Clinicians establish the person's subjective experience, degree of awareness, continuity of identity, memory before and after the event, and the circumstances in which it occurs. Similar outward signs can accompany neurological episodes, substance effects, sleep-related events, and other psychiatric presentations. WHO's ICD-11 clinical descriptions place such distinctions at the center of diagnosis.
What is possession trance disorder in ICD-11?
Possession trance disorder, code 6B63, involves an involuntary trance state in which a person's usual sense of identity is experienced as replaced by an external possessing identity. The person may experience movements, actions, or speech as controlled by that agent. Descriptions of the external identity can involve a spirit, ancestor, deity, force, or another culturally meaningful presence. Clinicians assess this as the person's reported experience of agency and identity; a psychiatric diagnosis does not settle the religious or metaphysical interpretation of the experience. The defining distinction from 6B62 is the experience of replacement by an externally attributed identity. Reed et al. describe the ICD-11 separation.
For example, a person may describe episodes in which they feel that another being is speaking through them while they cannot direct their actions, and afterward report serious fear or disruption. Whether this meets criteria depends on the episode pattern, distress or impairment, cultural circumstances, and exclusions. A description such as "a spirit spoke through me" is clinically insufficient by itself. The WHO manual requires a full clinical appraisal.
Trance disorder vs possession trance disorder: the central differences
Both ICD-11 conditions belong to the dissociative disorders grouping and involve unwanted alterations in consciousness or identity. In trance disorder, awareness becomes narrowed and a restricted range of behavior may recur without the person's identity being replaced by a perceived external agent. In possession trance disorder, that perceived replacement and external control of behavior are defining features, and the episodes can involve a broader behavioral repertoire. Either category requires much more than witnessing a trance-like moment. WHO's classification paper explains why the historical grouping was divided.
Both categories require recurrent episodes, or a single episode lasting at least several days, as specified in ICD-11. They also require that the trance be involuntary and unwanted, fall outside an accepted collective cultural or religious practice, cause significant distress or significant functional impairment, and lack a better clinical explanation. These are essential qualifications: a short isolated episode, a voluntary ceremony, or a surprising experience without meaningful harm cannot be turned into an ICD-11 diagnosis by matching one prominent feature. WHO ICD-11 clinical requirements should guide use of the codes.
Why cultural context determines the clinical interpretation
Trance states can arise during collective religious ceremonies, healing practices, spiritual observances, meditation, music and rhythmic movement, and other contexts in which altered attention or agency carries a shared meaning. Participation may be intentional and integrated into community life. A culturally recognized possession idiom can also be how someone communicates grief, conflict, distress, or social concerns. None of these descriptions by itself is a psychiatric finding. A clinician should learn what the experience means to the individual and to the relevant community, including whether the ritual is expected and whether the person wants to participate. Moreira-Almeida and Cardeña's cross-cultural review outlines why context, control, distress, functioning, and cultural recognition matter.
Cultural recognition does not make every experience harmless; a person may be suffering within a familiar tradition. Equally, belonging to a minority faith or using a spiritual explanation does not make an episode pathological. Context requires individual assessment. The relevant comparison is not "normal culture versus abnormal culture" but the specific person's participation, consent, perceived control, suffering, safety, and functioning. Cultural variation also complicates any effort to generalize rates across populations, as emphasized by Bhavsar, Ventriglio, and Bhugra.
What counts as a culturally sanctioned practice?
A sanctioned practice is generally one recognized within a relevant collective tradition, with established expectations around its setting, meaning, and participation. Clinicians should ask who considers the practice accepted, whether the individual freely participates, whether it happens in the expected context, and what happens outside that setting. Recognition by a group is useful information, but communities are not monolithic: age, migration, family conflict, coercion, and differences among spiritual leaders may affect the experience. The American Psychiatric Association's Cultural Formulation Interview resources help elicit these distinctions.
An episode that begins during a ceremony may still merit care if there is injury, loss of safety, sustained confusion, severe fear, or marked disruption afterward. Conversely, a person may choose to seek psychological support to understand an unusual but nonpathological spiritual experience. Care can be appropriate without a trance disorder diagnosis. The research review on spiritual experience and differential diagnosis supports separating an individual's needs from assumptions about their beliefs.
Spirit possession beliefs, ritual trance, and clinical disorder
The expression "spirit possession" describes an explanatory framework used in different traditions; it is not automatically synonymous with possession trance disorder. Likewise, "religious trance" names a context, and "dissociative episode" names a type of experience. ICD-11 6B63 is a specific diagnostic category requiring the characteristic identity-replacement phenomenon and other clinical conditions. Research on nonclinical channeling and related experiences illustrates the wide diversity of subjective reports and the difficulty of drawing diagnostic conclusions from labels alone. Pederzoli, Tressoldi, and Wahbeh discuss these boundary questions, although their paper is conceptual rather than a diagnostic validation study.
Symptoms and what a clinician actually observes
People may report altered responsiveness, a narrowing of awareness, changes in their sense of agency, repetitive movements or words, shifts in voice or expression, a sense of being displaced by another identity, episodes of confusion, or uncertainty about what occurred. Some report partial memory gaps, intense emotions, bodily sensations, or fear of losing control. Others remember much of the event. None of these individual features is unique to trance or possession trance disorder. The clinical literature review covering 402 reported cases found heterogeneous presentations, including memory and perceptual symptoms, illustrating why single-symptom diagnosis is unreliable.
A clinician evaluates the full pattern: onset, duration, recurrence, changes over time, subjective awareness, relation to ritual or stress, medical history, sleep, substances, medications, function, and consequences. Observations from trusted witnesses may help if the patient consents, but accounts can differ and should be interpreted carefully. Videos of episodes, if voluntarily provided, can supplement an interview; they cannot replace medical and psychiatric evaluation. Contemporary case reporting underscores how apparently similar presentations may require different diagnoses after careful assessment. A 2026 case report describes such complexity but cannot establish population-level diagnostic rules.
ICD-11 diagnostic requirements: beyond the appearance of trance
Frequency, duration, and loss of control
ICD-11 specifies recurrent trance episodes, or an episode lasting at least several days if only one episode is used as the basis for diagnosis. The trance or possession experience must be involuntary and unwanted. In some people a subjective loss of agency is prominent; in others outside observers notice behavioral changes first. Clinicians should document what the person means by "I could not control it" rather than assuming the phrase describes a particular mechanism. The WHO CDDR is the authoritative source for formal requirements.
Distress and functional impairment
Significant distress may include intense fear, shame, unwanted recurrence, or serious disruption of daily life. Functional impairment can affect work, education, family responsibilities, safety, or relationships. Sometimes the social consequences of an episode are substantial because of stigma or conflict; the clinician should distinguish distress arising from the episode itself from distress arising from discrimination or coercive reactions. Both deserve attention, but they may suggest different interventions. The ICD-11 requirement is clinically significant distress or impairment, not merely social disapproval of an unusual tradition. WHO's diagnostic framework and cultural formulation research are useful anchors.
Exclusion of other explanations
A diagnosis requires evaluation of other dissociative disorders, other mental disorders, substance and medication effects or withdrawal, exhaustion, states near sleep onset or waking, diseases of the nervous system, and sleep-wake disorders. For trance disorder, the diagnostic description also draws attention to head trauma. Medical or neurological assessment may be necessary when an episode involves loss of consciousness, atypical movements, new cognitive changes, injury, or other neurological warning signs. WHO diagnostic requirements establish this differential approach.
ICD-11 and DSM-5-TR: why the labels differ
ICD-11 has two distinct codes, 6B62 and 6B63. The American Psychiatric Association's DSM-5-TR organizes dissociative diagnoses differently. Possession-form identity presentations can be considered within the diagnostic framework for dissociative identity disorder when the complete DID criteria are met, while some trance-related dissociative presentations may require consideration under other specified or unspecified dissociative disorder. The presence of a possession narrative does not automatically establish DID, OSDD, or any other DSM diagnosis. Classification systems have different structures and diagnostic formulations, so a one-to-one code translation is unsafe. The ICD-11 classification authors and the APA's clinical assessment resources provide the relevant frameworks.
For American readers, this distinction matters when reading medical records, international research, or materials about "dissociative trance disorder." Older publications often use historical ICD-10 or DSM-IV terminology that does not map exactly onto the two current ICD-11 categories. The older name "trance and possession disorder" can be used loosely in literature even where ICD-11 distinguishes its subtypes as separate disorders. Diagnoses should be interpreted in the context of the system and edition being used, not inferred from a search result's terminology. During and colleagues' 2011 review predates ICD-11 and is best read with that limitation in mind.
Differential diagnosis: what else can resemble a possession or trance episode?
Psychotic disorders and delusions of control
Psychosis can involve hallucinations, delusional interpretations, disorganized thinking, and disturbances in reality testing. A culturally meaningful account of spirit possession is not, by itself, evidence of psychosis. Assessment considers the broader course, beliefs within their cultural setting, thought organization, mood state, functional change, and symptoms outside discrete episodes. A person can have unusual spiritual experiences without a psychotic disorder, and a person with psychosis can explain symptoms spiritually. These possibilities should be assessed without assuming a single cause. Moreira-Almeida and Cardeña review the distinction, while a 2026 clinical case illustrates overlapping presentations rather than a simple diagnostic shortcut.
Dissociative identity disorder and other dissociative conditions
Dissociative identity disorder involves a characteristic pattern of identity disruption and recurrent gaps in recall; diagnosis requires a comprehensive clinical assessment, including cultural exclusions and alternative explanations. Possession-form identity descriptions may appear in DID, but this does not make every possession episode DID. Depersonalization describes feeling detached from oneself; derealization describes feeling that one's surroundings are unreal. Dissociative amnesia concerns a clinically significant inability to recall autobiographical information. Those phenomena can coexist with trance experiences but are distinct clinical constructs. WHO's reorganized dissociative disorder framework sets out these categories.
Seizures, neurological disease, and sleep-related episodes
Focal seizures, other epileptic events, functional seizures, parasomnias, narcolepsy-related phenomena, and altered awareness associated with neurological illness can sometimes be described as trance or possession. A clinician may need a neurological examination, medication review, electroencephalography, sleep evaluation, or other tests guided by history and examination. A normal brief examination does not by itself prove a dissociative condition. Functional neurological symptoms also require appropriate positive clinical assessment, rather than simply being assigned after tests are unrevealing. A neuropsychiatric discussion of possession trance, epilepsy, and psychosis explains these diagnostic challenges.
Panic, trauma-related disorders, mood conditions, and substance effects
High anxiety, panic, dissociation during overwhelming stress, trauma reminders, profound sleep deprivation, intoxication, withdrawal, and severe mood episodes can alter awareness or agency. A person may experience one or several of these alongside a spiritual interpretation. The clinical task is to establish the predominant syndrome, chronology, triggers, and relationship between symptoms. A trauma history may be relevant but is not a mandatory or sufficient explanation. Şar's transdiagnostic cultural assessment review supports individualized cross-diagnostic evaluation.
How clinicians assess trance and possession trance experiences
The assessment begins with an open account in the person's own words. What happened? Who witnessed it? How did it begin and end? Was the person aware of their surroundings, able to respond, or able to stop? What do they remember? Did they perceive another identity taking control? Has it happened repeatedly, and what were the immediate and longer-term effects? These questions establish clinical phenomenology without suggesting that a particular supernatural, traumatic, or psychiatric explanation must be correct. Aggarwal and colleagues' review of the Cultural Formulation Interview provides a structured way to explore meaning and explanatory models.
The clinician also asks whether the experience took place within a recognized cultural or religious practice, how the individual and others understand it, whether participation was chosen, and what the person hopes treatment will achieve. Language needs matter: a skilled interpreter can help avoid transforming culturally meaningful expressions into misleading symptom labels. Collateral accounts should be sought with appropriate consent and attention to safety, especially if the person fears judgment from family or religious authorities. The APA Cultural Formulation Interview is a clinical interviewing aid, not a stand-alone diagnostic test.
A culturally informed assessment of safety
Evaluation should consider risk of falling, driving during episodes, dangerous physical restraint, coerced or punitive rituals, exploitation, family violence, self-harm, and medical emergencies. It should also recognize the person's sources of support and preferred community relationships. If a spiritual leader participates in care, this should occur with the patient's informed agreement and must not delay necessary medical treatment or override consent. A three-year case follow-up illustrates how competing religious and medical explanations can complicate care; it remains a single case, not evidence that all rituals carry the same risk.
Can a questionnaire or online test diagnose these disorders?
No validated online quiz can confirm ICD-11 trance disorder or possession trance disorder from a brief symptom score. Broad dissociation questionnaires may signal experiences worth discussing, but do not determine whether they arise during a culturally accepted practice or whether neurological, medication-related, sleep-related, psychotic, or other dissociative explanations are more appropriate. Formal diagnosis requires a qualified clinician's interview and differential assessment. The APA's guidance on assessment measures explicitly positions such tools as aids rather than substitutes for diagnosis.
What causes trance and possession trance disorders?
Research has considered stress, interpersonal adversity, dissociative tendencies, emotion regulation, trauma exposure, cultural learning, expectations, social contexts, and the perceived meaning of altered states. These are possible contributors, associations, or interpretive frameworks, not a single demonstrated cause. The clinical literature includes descriptions from distinct countries and social settings, often using different definitions and ascertainment methods. The 2011 critical review and 2016 cultural review emphasize the complexity and weaknesses of the evidence base.
Trauma may be relevant for some patients, particularly where episodes occur with PTSD symptoms, interpersonal threat, or chronic dissociation. It is equally important to avoid making trauma a universal explanation or interpreting symptoms as proof of a specific past event. Contemporary models of dissociation remain heterogeneous, and findings from DID or PTSD cannot automatically be extended to ICD-11 trance disorders. Şar's cross-cultural clinical overview describes the variety of dissociative presentations. Questions about childhood trauma and dissociation are addressed in a separate English Hub evidence guide.
Do stress and cultural expectations shape symptoms?
Stress can influence attention, arousal, emotional regulation, memory, and perceived agency. Cultural models can influence how these changes are labeled, shared, anticipated, and responded to. These influences can interact without reducing a person's experience to simple suggestion or proving that a particular spiritual explanation is true. Ethnographic and clinical research emphasizes multiple explanatory models and differences among cultural settings. Bhavsar and colleagues describe the limits of interpreting the same symptom language identically across communities.
Can memories from an episode reveal hidden trauma?
A memory or image reported during a trance, after hypnosis, or in psychotherapy is not independent confirmation that an event happened as remembered. Memory is reconstructive, and detailed experiences can feel certain without external corroboration. Clinicians should document spontaneous reports accurately, avoid leading questions or pressure to recover memories, and separate therapeutic exploration from factual investigation. This caution is especially important when unusual experiences are interpreted by others as evidence of specific abuse, possession, or past events. A separate Trauma and Memory guide examines the relevant evidence in detail.
How common are these disorders?
Reliable population prevalence estimates for the two modern ICD-11 diagnoses are lacking. Older reports typically combine different trance and possession categories, draw from specialty clinics or selected cultural settings, and apply definitions that predate the present classification. In the 2011 review, 28 papers described 402 cases; the proportions of symptoms within those published cases do not estimate how common the disorder is in the general population. Publication bias, uneven access to care, translation, and cultural variability make simple global percentages misleading.
Any prevalence claim must specify the population, diagnostic instrument, culture, case definition, and time period. An estimate of dissociation in a general psychiatric sample is not an estimate of possession trance disorder. The cultural validity review specifically identifies these methodological barriers.
Treatment: what care can help?
Treatment begins by identifying the actual clinical problem and the person's goals. If another condition accounts for the symptoms, care is directed at that condition. When ICD-11 trance disorder or possession trance disorder is diagnosed, clinicians may use individualized psychological treatment to improve safety, emotional regulation, coping, daily functioning, and the ability to understand and manage episodes. Treatment should also address co-occurring anxiety, depression, trauma-related symptoms, sleep problems, or medical illness when present. The patient's cultural interpretation can be discussed respectfully without requiring the clinician or patient to abandon their preferred language about the experience. Şar's clinical review discusses a culturally informed and transdiagnostic approach.
Psychotherapy appears repeatedly in case literature, but disorder-specific randomized controlled trials and high-certainty comparative evidence are scarce. Improvements reported in small observational studies or case reports cannot establish the best treatment for every person. Cognitive-behavioral techniques, supportive therapy, skills for regulating arousal, and carefully selected trauma-focused approaches may be considered according to a full formulation, co-occurring diagnoses, and patient preferences. Care should be paced to avoid escalating distress or reinforcing frightening interpretations. The 2011 literature review and 2022 three-year case follow-up illustrate both clinical possibilities and substantial evidence limitations.
Are medications used?
There is no established medication that specifically cures ICD-11 trance disorder or possession trance disorder. Medication may be appropriate for a diagnosed co-occurring psychiatric disorder, a clearly identified medical condition, or acute symptoms requiring supervised treatment. Antipsychotics, for example, should not be assumed necessary merely because a person describes a possessing presence; a psychotic disorder or another clinical indication must be assessed. A 2026 case report describes medication use in an acute presentation with psychotic features, but a single case does not demonstrate efficacy for possession trance disorder itself.
Can spiritual and clinical support coexist?
Many people value both mental health care and trusted spiritual or community support. With the person's informed consent, supportive collaboration may improve communication, practical safety, and engagement. The boundaries are important: medical emergencies require medical care; treatment choices should remain voluntary; and humiliating, coercive, physically dangerous, or financially exploitative interventions require safeguarding. Cultural sensitivity includes protecting autonomy as well as understanding tradition. The APA Cultural Formulation Interview can help clarify the patient's own treatment preferences.
Prognosis and recovery
Some individuals have brief, isolated experiences that never recur. Others report persistent or recurrent distress and impairment. The course depends on diagnostic accuracy, safety, co-occurring conditions, environmental circumstances, and access to effective care. Robust long-term prognosis data specifically using the two ICD-11 diagnoses are limited. A favorable outcome in one published case is informative about what may happen to that patient; it does not establish a universal recovery rate or guarantee that a particular intervention works. The longitudinal case account illustrates individual change over several years.
A practical measure of progress is whether episodes become safer and less disruptive, whether the person can make decisions about their care, and whether distress and everyday functioning improve. For some, success also includes finding a coherent account of their experience that respects both clinical evidence and personally meaningful beliefs.
What to do if you or someone else experiences an unwanted trance episode
If a person is physically safe, speak calmly, reduce excessive stimulation, and avoid confrontation about the meaning of the experience. Invite simple orientation to the immediate environment when welcome, such as noticing the room, a stable surface, and the people present. Ask permission before touching them. Do not crowd, restrain, shame, mock, or try to force an explanation. These are cautious first-response measures, not a diagnostic technique or a substitute for treatment.
Arrange a medical or mental health assessment when episodes recur, produce substantial distress, interfere with functioning, or involve memory loss or perceived loss of control. Keep a neutral record of when episodes occur, how long they last, surrounding circumstances, injuries, medications, sleep, and recovery, while respecting privacy and avoiding leading interpretations. Seek urgent medical help for a first seizure-like event, prolonged unresponsiveness, serious injury, poisoning or overdose, new weakness or confusion, severe agitation, or immediate danger to the person or others. When someone may harm themselves, use local emergency services or available crisis support.
Common misunderstandings
An intense spiritual experience does not automatically indicate a mental disorder. Equally, a shared cultural explanation does not eliminate the need to evaluate serious symptoms. A report of speaking in another voice, losing time, or feeling controlled does not by itself prove the presence of a spirit, DID, psychosis, or an ICD-11 trance diagnosis. Trauma may be relevant in some histories but cannot be inferred from a trance episode. Diagnostic precision depends on a longitudinal history, cultural understanding, examination where indicated, and the careful use of the correct classification. WHO, Reed et al., and Moreira-Almeida and Cardeña establish the principal framework.
Frequently asked questions
Is possession trance disorder a real ICD-11 diagnosis?
Yes. The WHO's ICD-11 includes possession trance disorder under code 6B63 and trance disorder under code 6B62. These formal diagnostic categories describe particular experiences and clinical requirements; they make no judgment on the objective existence of spiritual entities. WHO ICD-11.
What is the difference between trance disorder and possession trance disorder?
Both involve clinically significant, involuntary altered states. Trance disorder emphasizes narrowed awareness and restricted repetitive behavior without perceived replacement by an external identity. Possession trance disorder includes the subjective replacement of customary identity by an external possessing agent. Reed et al..
Is religious trance a mental illness?
A voluntary or culturally sanctioned practice is not, on that basis, an ICD-11 trance disorder. A person may still need care for injuries, fear, co-occurring illness, or other concerns, evaluated according to their individual circumstances. Moreira-Almeida and Cardeña.
Can possession trance happen without a history of trauma?
A trauma history is not a necessary diagnostic requirement for ICD-11 possession trance disorder. Clinicians assess relevant adversity alongside other psychological, cultural, medical, and social factors, without treating trauma as inevitable or proven by symptoms. WHO.
Does an episode have to be repeated?
The ICD-11 descriptions require recurrent episodes or, for diagnosis based on a single episode, an episode that lasts for at least several days. Other clinical criteria and exclusions also apply. An isolated brief event requires appropriate assessment rather than automatic classification as one of these disorders. WHO.
Is possession trance disorder the same as DID?
No. ICD-11 distinguishes possession trance disorder from dissociative identity disorder. The DSM-5-TR uses a different diagnostic organization, and possession-form experiences may occur in several contexts. DID requires its own characteristic pattern and full clinical criteria. Reed and colleagues.
Can possession trance look like psychosis or epilepsy?
Some features can overlap, including unusual behavior, impaired responsiveness, memory changes, and perceptions of outside control. Clinicians evaluate the entire episode pattern, neurological and psychiatric findings, cultural context, and relevant medical causes. Clinical neuropsychiatric discussion.
Is it possible to have these experiences and still be mentally healthy?
Yes. Altered consciousness and possession-like experiences can be nonclinical within individual or community contexts. Clinical diagnosis depends on more than the content or unusualness of the experience. Cross-cultural differential review.
Can a therapist tell whether a possessing spirit is actually present?
A clinician can evaluate symptoms, impairment, safety, and competing clinical explanations. A psychiatric diagnostic interview is not a scientific test of metaphysical claims. Good care can engage with a person's account respectfully and clarify what support they seek. APA CFI resources.
Are antidepressants or antipsychotics the standard treatment?
There is no established drug treatment specific to ICD-11 possession trance disorder. Medication decisions should follow an independently assessed clinical indication, especially when depression, psychosis, or another condition is present. The clinical literature review illustrates the limited disorder-specific evidence.
Is hypnosis a diagnostic test or a way to recover reliable memories?
Hypnosis cannot establish the ICD-11 diagnosis or verify historical memories. If any suggestive technique is considered in treatment, clinicians should account for memory limitations, patient consent, and the risk of shaping reports through leading questions. Diagnostic assessment relies on broader clinical evidence, not induced experiences.
When should someone seek urgent help?
An emergency evaluation is appropriate for prolonged unresponsiveness, seizure-like activity with injury or unusual neurological signs, serious confusion, immediate risk of violence or self-harm, overdose, or rapidly deteriorating medical or psychiatric symptoms. These situations need assessment regardless of whether the episode has a religious interpretation.
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References
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