In a layman’s language, semiotics can be defined as the use of symbolic communication through signs, logos, gestures (behavioural) and other linguistic and non-linguistic methods. The term is derived from the Greek word sēmeiōtikós, which describes the act of interpreting signs. One of the founders of semiotics, the Swiss linguist, Ferdinand de Saussure, defined the term as the study of “the life of signs within a society.”
It is important to note that semiotics plays very significant roles in psychiatry, especially from diagnostic perspectives. Psychiatrists and psychologists can deconstruct and diagnose mental health issues in their patients through semiological analyses. Most importantly, persons who are not trained psychiatrists or psychologists but who are interested in psychoanalytical or psychopathological issues may recognise mental cases by their signs and body language and raise the alarm by reporting such to the appropriate authorities. This is perhaps one of the missing links in contemporary African society where most people treat issues of mental illness with the highest levels of stigma and nonchalance.
Most of the mentally challenged men and women you see roaming the streets could have been managed successfully, if people around them had shown more concern by carefully studying and trying to decode their strange behaviours and mannerisms early enough before their conditions worsened. As illustrated by William Shakespeare in Macbeth, Lady Macbeth’s somnambulism (sleepwalking malady) was a sign of some mental breakdown emanating from her feeling of guilt and psychological disorientation as one of the masterminds of the murder of King Duncan.
There are many Lady Macbeths in real life who are roaming the streets talking gibberish and living in an entirely different mental frequency from the rest of us. Such cases may not be products of substance abuse. Some of them may be victims of severe existential tragedies or partakers in grievous guilt-laden crimes for which they have lost their minds. For such people, the intervention of the community through critical observation can help in the healing process.
Conversely, trained and experienced psychiatrists and psychologists depend on the semiological interpretations of the signs and symptoms presented by mentally challenged persons in arriving at the appropriate diagnostic and prescription activities. While orthodox medicine does not believe in the myths and superstitions that populate spirituality, it is still important that mental cases, which society often ascribes to supernatural causes, are evaluated by trained psychiatrists or psychologists who have a deeper understanding of medical semiotics and their impact in the management of psychopathological issues.
Whether or not a mental case is caused by spiritual forces, the truth remains that any disease of the mind requires the attention of a mental health expert while prayer and other spiritual rituals can be used as complements. Indeed, there have been many cases of people who were said to have had spiritual problems which manifested in the form of insanity. The case of a popular Nigerian musician who was said to have read the Sixth and Seventh Books of Moses comes to mind.
While the late musician kept pointing fingers at some spiritual misadventure as the main cause of his insanity, some people who were close to him revealed that his mental health issue emanated from his reckless abuse of alcohol and some cheap narcotics in the United States. These substances led to the deterioration of his mental health condition before he was eventually taken into many unsuccessful rehabilitation programmes, both in the US and Nigeria. Until his death in 2020, his case remained a puzzling reality shrouded in the anarchical juxtaposition of spirituality and drug abuse.
Rather than basking in the euphoria of some speculative spiritualism, as embedded in religions such as Christianity, Islam, African traditional religion and other theistic doctrines to arrive at the cause of a particular mental illness, trained psychiatrists and psychologists look out for certain codes in human behaviour to ascertain the needed course of action.
Interestingly religious delusions have been observed as some of the major signs of schizophrenia. People who nurse such delusions often see themselves as God or prophets sent to fight evil. Such people also have the tendency to resort to suicidal thoughts or actions, if not properly managed by mental health experts. A typical example is the case of the famous English artist, Richard Dadd, who at the age of 26 in 1843, killed his father, believing that his father was the devil and that he had been sent by God to fight the forces of evil.
Today, there are many religious persons who share the same traits with Dadd. While some are drug addicts trying to find solace in religion, others are “addicts of unknown addictions.” You will always find them in societies where economic depression, poverty and penury reign supreme. You can actually save a soul by alerting the appropriate authorities when you notice such abnormal messianic dissipations in any individual.
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