Dr. James Spinel is a psychiatrist and counselor who is mentioned in FAITH: Chapters I, II, and III via notes.
Biography[]
Not much is known about Dr. Spinel due to him only mentioned through notes found throughout the series.
September 22nd, 1986[]
A day after the botched exorcism, John and Amy have been admitted into the Yale Psychiatric Institute instead of police custody due to how mentally unwell and unstable they are. Dr. Spinel has been assigned to handle John to get a better understanding of his mental state and to make him come to terms as to what truly happened during the incident. This has to be done because the police and the Martin Family attorneys need a clear narrative to solve the case behind Cindy, Bob, and Father Allred's deaths.
Dr. Spinel creates a new patient intake form for John and performs the initial consultation. During this, John was non-responsive for the first half-hour and told an inconsistent story of an exorcism narrative. Dr. Spinel writes in his notes that he needs more sessions with John to better understand the situation and plans to begin a treatment process tomorrow.
September 23rd to October 23rd, 1986[]
For the next month, Dr. Spinel starts a treatment process for John so that he can regain his sanity.
During a counseling session, Dr. Spinel notes that John is suffering from delusion. At this point, Dr. Spinel and others believe that there was never anything supernatural occurring during the incident. He goes on to say that, in John's mind, he believes that he's a hero sent by God to protect the innocent and that he needs to believe in evil spirits and paranormal occurrences for everything to make sense. Dr. Spinel states that John is doing this so that he can escape the consequences of his actions. Dr. Spinel suggests of doing an in-vivo approach of prescribing John some kind of medication to combat his anxiety and come into better terms of the truth. Interestingly, John somehow knows Amy is in the same institution as him, so Dr. Spinel recommends for Amy to be relocated somewhere else. It's unknown if this recommendation happened or not.
October 23rd, 1986[]
John writes a letter to Dr. McGlashan as a request to be released from the institute. John says that thanks to Dr. Spinel's counseling and treatment, his nightmares have gotten better and understands what happened during the incident. John says that Amy was driven to killing her parents due to how controlling they were and Father Allred for using old church rituals to dispel evil. He requests to be released in exchange for follow-up appointments with Dr. Spinel.
October 31st, 1986[]
Dr. Spinel releases John from his care, stating that he is pleased to see John's improvement through finishing his required counseling and his status from doing treatment. Dr. Spinel believes that John is ready to be brought back into society, meaning that John isn't accused of murdering Amy's parents and Father Allred anymore. This is the last time Dr. Spinel is mentioned and it's unknown if John had future appointments with him.
Theories[]
- John was likely heavily traumatized while he was a patient at the institution.
- When the Unholy Spirit touches John, he sent back into a flashback when he was a patient. John is in a straitjacket and stuck in a room with drawings of crucifixes over it. Although John is suffering from delusions and trauma after seeing how powerful Amy's demon is, it's unethical to restrain a patient like this, especially nowadays. Also, whenever a note from Dr. Spinel is found, it typically appears when John is about to suffer from a hallucination (opening the door covered in crucifixes in Chapter III) or giving into his evil urges (The process to fight the Mirror Demon, the Pentagram Demon, and getting the "Initiation" ending of Chapter II). John made it out physically ok, but his experience at the institution will likely leave a permanent effect on him and associates his time there as demonic.
- Maybe the reason why Amy was accused of killing her parents and Father Allred and not John could be through fingerprinting. Dr. Spinel and others might've originally suspected him of doing the killing.
- We already know that John didn't kill them, and since Amy strangled her parents with their own intestines, her fingerprints were probably all over the bodies. It seems like at first John was accused of killing them since he is an adult male, they're typically stronger compared to a teenage female, which might be why Martin Family attorneys were mentioned in the first place. Essentially, they probably wanted to trial him but is unfit to do so because of how delusional he sounds, can't give a reliable narrative, and his DNA isn't found on the bodies.
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