There are moments in life when everything seems to fall apart. Classical psychiatry has grown used to labeling these moments as disorders: anxiety crises, depressive episodes, breakdowns. And yes, sometimes they are. But sometimes, they’re also something else: doors, thresholds, turning points.

Throughout my career, I’ve seen how behind a symptom, there is often a deeper question: what part of me needs to be heard? What is this pain trying to tell me? When there is no space for that question, the crisis turns into chronic pathology. When there is holding, listening, and vision, the same crisis can become a process of awakening.

This doesn’t mean romanticizing suffering or denying the need for clinical support, containment, or at times, medication. It means remembering that the human mind is complex, and that pain—when well accompanied—can open a sense that goes beyond merely suppressing symptoms.

In integrative and transpersonal psychiatry, crisis and awakening are not opposites. They are two sides of the same possibility: the chance to transform what hurts into a step toward something deeper and more true. Accompanying that passage requires respect, ethics, and the humility not to impose fixed explanations.

Perhaps the real task is not to silence the symptom, but to learn to listen to it without fear.

Every crisis can be a threshold: it’s not always about escaping, but learning to cross it.