Guru Viking Podcast

In this episode I host a dialogue between Dr Chencho Dorji, Bhutan’s first psychiatrist and the Professor of Psychiatry at Khesar Gyalpo University of Medical Sciences, and Dr Caroline Van Damme, an adult psychiatrist and family and systemic psychotherapist specialising in chronic psychotic disorders. Drs Dorji and Van Damme dialogue about their experiences as psychiatrists in very different countries, Bhutan and Belgium. They compare their experiences treating religious psychosis in which patients believe they are Jesus or Padmasambhava, address mental health stigma, and examine the interaction of supernatural beliefs such as spirit possession with modern psychiatry. The Drs discuss the emerging mental health laws in Bhutan, including forced treatment laws, innovative treatment models, and pressures from pharmaceutical companies. The Drs also consider the pros and cons of religion to both society and the individual, examine three levels of Bhutanese Buddhism, and reflect on the dire consequences of the d