Soul Loss

Soul Loss (German Seelenverlust; Spanish pérdida del alma) is a diagnostic category of shamanic traditions (#28): part of a person's life force "leaves" as a result of trauma, shock, grief or loss.

Symptoms of Soul Loss

• Chronic fatigue, medically unexplained
• Apathy, depression, a sense of "incompleteness" or "absence"
• Immune disorders, recurring illnesses
• Emotional flatness, dissociation
• The feeling "I am not here" or "part of me stayed there"

Treatment — Soul Retrieval

Soul retrieval. The treatment is "soul retrieval": the shaman (T102), in ASC (T103), "journeys" to the Lower or Upper World, finds the lost part of the soul and "blows" it back into the client's body.

Analogs in Other Traditions

• The Thai tradition (#36) — loss of Khwan (T020), restored through the bai si ritual (บายศรี)
• Depth psychology (#11) — dissociation, repressed parts of the personality
• Constellations (#27) — a "frozen" part of the system

Not a Metaphor

A literal event. Not a metaphor — in shamanic ontology, soul loss is a literal event, not an image.