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The Naming Ceremony: Is Diagnosis a Modern Shamanic Ritual?

Phased
While the clinical world is often obsessed with "disorders," most of us know that’s a fundamentally broken way to describe our experience. Lately, I’ve been thinking that for many in the neurodivergent community, getting that formal recognition—or finding your own path to self-understanding—feels less like a medical report and more like a naming ceremony.
I have to give a huge nod to TheCatWoman for this spark. In a recent chat, she used the brilliant analogy: trying to run a neurodivergent brain on neurotypical psychology is like trying to run Windows on an Apple. It got me thinking—if the "operating systems" are that different, then the people who originally built these theories weren't really scientists in the modern sense. They were more like 20th-century shamans trying to map a spirit world they didn't fully understand.
In ancient cultures, a naming ritual was a way to reintegrate someone whose "spirit" seemed at odds with the world. Once named, the "problem" became a "trait," and the person could finally take their rightful place in the tribe. Whether that name comes from a formal assessment or through the "vision quest" of self-diagnosis, it’s a powerful moment of literal recognition. It's like finally identifying with your own spirit animal—finding the creature that actually matches your tracks, rather than trying to pretend you’re a wolf when you’re actually a horse.
I also noticed NAS recently asking the community to share their own tips for securing reasonable adjustments. I suspect they may have been pivoting from my earlier post about being fed up with the lack of them! In this shamanic framework, when a group asks the tribe for their "how-to" guides, they are gathering the communal wisdom needed to help us become the Architects of our own Sacred Space.
These adjustments—whether it's noise-cancelling, flexible hours, or literal task lists—are the protective boundaries that stop our "Apple" OS from overheating in a "Windows" world and the horses getting predated by the wolves.
For those of you who have found your "Name"—whether through a clinician or your own research—did it feel like a clinical label, or did it feel like a ceremony that finally brought your soul home?
Parents
  • Phased said:
    Architects of our own Sacred Space.

    Great post  

    When told of my ASD diagnosis my emotions and thoughts were jumping about all over the place. It was a preposterous thought to be autistic and for there to be a known cause for my behaviour and ensuing shame, along with other difficulties. Within a minute or so ‘my ribs contracted and my stomach leapt into my mouth’ or so it felt in the sense of an exquisite release of much of the shame that had built up over more than sixty years.

    It felt like a clinical label. In the absence of an alternative the label was required to give me validation. I would never have trusted myself enough to release shame without credible evidence and authority. That doesn’t take away from the journey my soul took to bring me home.

    I wrote a piece about my journey from earliest memory to diagnosis in the form of an article. I suppose it’s like a mini memoir yet it’s of therapeutic value only to me. 

    Years before diagnosis I wrote a piece about some clay Neolithic anthropomorphic figurines being ‘philosophies of being human’. It included an introduction thanking my tutor for introducing me to an ancient people who understood how to reflect the meaning and function of being human.

    I’m not artistic but I would like to shape a lump of clay into something that resembles a Neolithic figurine, but it would be a reflection of me. That ceremony is yet to be. 

Reply
  • Phased said:
    Architects of our own Sacred Space.

    Great post  

    When told of my ASD diagnosis my emotions and thoughts were jumping about all over the place. It was a preposterous thought to be autistic and for there to be a known cause for my behaviour and ensuing shame, along with other difficulties. Within a minute or so ‘my ribs contracted and my stomach leapt into my mouth’ or so it felt in the sense of an exquisite release of much of the shame that had built up over more than sixty years.

    It felt like a clinical label. In the absence of an alternative the label was required to give me validation. I would never have trusted myself enough to release shame without credible evidence and authority. That doesn’t take away from the journey my soul took to bring me home.

    I wrote a piece about my journey from earliest memory to diagnosis in the form of an article. I suppose it’s like a mini memoir yet it’s of therapeutic value only to me. 

    Years before diagnosis I wrote a piece about some clay Neolithic anthropomorphic figurines being ‘philosophies of being human’. It included an introduction thanking my tutor for introducing me to an ancient people who understood how to reflect the meaning and function of being human.

    I’m not artistic but I would like to shape a lump of clay into something that resembles a Neolithic figurine, but it would be a reflection of me. That ceremony is yet to be. 

Children
  • in reply to ArchaeC
    What a profound way to describe that 'exquisite release.' After sixty years, it’s no wonder it felt so visceral—that’s a lifetime of 'wolf' expectations finally being lifted off your ribs.
    I really relate to what you said about needing that 'credible authority' to finally trust yourself. Sometimes, we need a 'judge' to deliver the verdict before we can finally grant ourselves a pardon for the shame we never deserved to carry.
    Your idea of shaping a Neolithic figurine as a reflection of yourself is a beautiful 'naming ceremony' in waiting. It’s like you’re reaching back to a time when being human had a different 'philosophy' entirely—one that might have had much more room for the horse-dragons among us. I hope when that ceremony happens, it feels like the final piece of the audit falling into place.