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marysc

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Allan,

What we know for a fact is that people have unusual experiences that interfere with their ability to function normally - hold down a job, relate to other people, etc. In the simpler cultures that I spoke of in my last email, these experiences were often interpreted as the mark of a future shaman or medicine man/woman and were highly valued. We often call these experiences schizophrenia, or psychosis.

Psychologist Lucy Johnstone has this to say about them:

Undoubtedly people with very unusual, confusing and distressing experiences exist. Undoubtedly the concept of 'schizophrenia' exists in our minds (as does the concept of God, witches, ghosts etc.) The question is, does this concept correspond to anything in reality? Specifically, does it actually explain people's distress in terms of the 'illness' model it assumes?

The answer is no. The 'diagnosis' is a kind of pseudo-explanation: Why does this person hear voices? Because they have 'schizophrenia. ' How do you know they have 'schizophrenia' ? Because they hear voices. Superficially it sounds like an explanation but in fact the argument is completely circular.

What researchers have tried to do, for many years, is to find an exit point from the circle by identifying an underlying 'sign', such as genetic abnormalities, biochemical imbalances etc (whatever those are; I have yet to be convinced that this is a meaningful scientific concept either.) Then you would be able to say.....'because we have done the test and it shows up X biological abnormality. ' Although this on its own wouldn't be enough because you would have to show that X was causally related to the subsequent mental distress, not just a correlation or chance association.

In the absence of biological signs, we have defined 'schizophrenia' (and every other psychiatric diagnosis) by a whole series of social and value judgments about how people ought to think, feel and behave. . . .Yes, we have identified troubled and troubling people who are in need of help. No, we have not identified a 'mental illness' that supposedly causes their distress. Instead we have reified a concept in our heads and assumed that it must also exist in the world, and then embarked on an entirely fruitless quest to find it, without realizing that it has no greater validity than earlier explanations such as evil spirits. As in the case of evil spirits, we can't see them or measure them but there is obviously something wrong, so it stands to reason that schizophrenia/ evil spirits must be in there somewhere, and by God we're not going to give up the search even if it means throwing billions more dollars at a pointless enterprise. In any other branch of medicine, this concept would long since have been abandoned for lack of support.

This faulty logic means that each and every study that is based on the premise that 'schizophrenia' is a valid medical diagnosis/scientific concept is doomed to failure. Most of the questions that have been posed are, quite simply, meaningless. 'What causes schizophrenia? ' is logically the same kind of query as 'How many broomsticks do witches have?' If neither 'witches' nor 'schizophrenia' exist outside our heads, this question is unanswerable.

Yes, I agree that people with a diagnosis of 'psychosis' do experience reality in a different way from most of us, but I really don't get the need for a special psychiatric label to denote this. Take the analogy of bereavement - a common trauma. We know that the bereaved can have all kinds of experiences that in other circumstances might be diagnosed 'psychotic' - they may sense the dead person's presence, hear their voice, think they see them in the street etc along with feeling extreme anguish and despair. But we don't rush to call this 'psychosis'. Why not? Because we fully appreciate the role of the obvious psychological trauma, and accept its devastating nature and consequences. The new research on (other kinds of) trauma ought to be creating exactly the same kind of awareness. If, as individuals and as a society, we fully accepted the psychological damage that abuse can do, terms like 'reaction to extreme trauma' would be quite sufficient.

Of course that falls a long way short of a neat diagnostic category, but the moral of all this is that we are not dealing with illnesses, but with human suffering, which does not fall into the discrete categories required by the natural sciences. Having a degree in philosophy in addition to psychology, I have always been bemused by psychiatric thinking. But then again, there are huge implications involved. If we finally acknowledge that we are dealing with 'people with problems' not 'patients with illnesses', then everything - absolutely everything - about psychiatry will need to change.

So if one's hold on reality, and very sanity, can be loosened by grief at the death of a loved one, or the stress of a rape or sudden disaster or prolonged war, then it can also be loosened by the lingering effects of childhood abuse, relationships gone bad, or the myriad other problems that can beset us all. I think most people in the real world have little trouble understanding this, and why psychiatric treatment, with its heavy emphasis on medication and little else, so often seems to do more harm than good.

Mary Newton

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mary: The "plunge into the deep inward sea" becomes a primary human experience, like giving birth to a child, or the death of a loved one. People react in various ways to these life-changing experiences, some living up to the challenge and others not. Similarly, the descent into the depths of the psyche, whether involuntary or earnestly sought, demands a response from the experiencer. This response can range from crippling psychosis at one extreme to ecstatic mysticism at the other, and all points in between including a return to relative normality, or "better than normal," which I suspect is the true evolutionary significance of the experience. This has been its function in earlier (and in some ways wiser) cultures than our own.

That has a nice resonance to it.

Mjolnir: The moral of the story is that he wasn't just the last one of his kind, he wasn't questing against a great evil that fell upon the world, he was systematically hunting and killing another race of people because he misunderstood them. They weren't trying to eat him because he was the last food left on earth, they were trying to kill him because they couldn't find another way to stop him from killing them.

That's a Shadow story, Mjolnir and I do think a great deal of Shadow Projection does play a significant role in how people are treated. We see it socially in the practice of stigma and therapeutically, in the attitudes, perspectives, assumptions, policies and treatments that are provided/available/imposed in this culture.

One of the first English physicians to write extensively on madness, its nature, and the proper treatment for it was Thomas Willis. He as highly admired for his investigations into the nervous system, and his 1684 text on insanity set the tone for the many medical guides that would be written over the next 100 years by English mad-doctors. The book’s title neatly summed up his views of the mad: The Practice of Physick: Two Discourses Concerning the Soul of Brutes.

His belief—that the insane were animal-like in kind—reflected prevailing conceptions about the nature of man. The great English scientists and philosophers of the seventeenth century—Francis Bacon, Isaac Newton, John Locke, and others—had all argued that reason was the faculty that elevated humankind above the animals. This was the form of intelligence that enabled man to scientifically know his world, and to create a civilized society. Thus the insane, by virtue of having lost their reason, were seen as having descended to a brutish state.

They were, Willis explained, fierce creatures who enjoyed superhuman strength. ““They can break cords and chains, break down doors or walls … they are almost never tired … they bear cold, heat, watching, fasting, strokes, and wounds, without any sensible hurt.”” The mad, he added, if they were to be cured, needed to hold their physicians in awe and think of them as their ““tormentors.””

Discipline, threats, fetters, and blows are needed as much as medical treatment … Truly nothing is more necessary and more effective for the recovery of these people than forcing them to respect and fear intimidation. By this method, the mind, held back by restraint is induced to give up its arrogance and wild ideas and it soon becomes meek and orderly. This is why maniacs often recover much sooner if they are treated with tortures and torments in a hovel instead of with medicaments.

A medical paradigm for treating the mad had been born, and eighteenth-century English medical texts regularly repeated this basic wisdom. In 1751, Richard Mead explained that the madman was a brute who could be expected to ““attack his fellow creatures with fury like a wild beast”” and thus needed ““to be tied down and even beat, to prevent his doing mischief to himself or others.””

Thomas Bakewell told of how a maniac ““bellowed like a wild beast, and shook his chain almost constantly for several days and nights … I therefore got up, took a hand whip, and gave him a few smart stripes upon the shoulders… He disturbed me no more.”” Physician Charles Bell, in his book Essays on the Anatomy of Expression in Painting, advised artists wishing to depict madmen ““to learn the character of the human countenance when devoid of expression, and reduced to the state of lower animals.””

Like all wild animals, lunatics needed to be dominated and broken...

Source: Rad Geek Review: Mad in America

Time constraints prevent me from responding any further than I already have tonight. I will be back to continue the conversation however.

~ Namaste

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Hello Mjo, Notmary, SE and others,

Sadly, there is such a thing as mental illness when we speak of schizophrenia and Bipolar Disorder. There are a couple of factors that place them in the category of mental illness. One of them has to do with the degree to which the illness interferes with the ability to function: hold down a job, relate to other people, etc. It is tragic when a person becomes so lost in their schizophrenia that they cannot find their way out. Before the advent of anti psychotic medications, that is what would happen. In fact, the schoprenia would get progressively worse, with some people ending up in catatonic states.

Just wanted to clarify.

Allan

Oh yeah, definitely not meaning to encourage anyone to think they're ok when they're not and need help. I got carried away there.

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marysc: You've brought up a knotty problem. What is "schizophrenia" or "psychosis" or "mental illness" anyway?

According to some it means you will never again be regarded as entirely human again.

*sigh*

In my own interactions with others over the years, I have often asked myself the same question. I've come up with my own labels, my own way of understanding. The following is a simple model but it works for me:

Depression = A deflated ego state.

Mania = An inflated ego state.

Psychosis = A collapsed or fragmented ego state.

When I am looking for others who may have had an experience similar to my own, what I am looking for are people who appear to have undergone a collapsed or fragmented ego state. Because trauma played a role in my own experience, I have often found a certain degree of solace and understanding among people who have had traumatic life experiences. To quote a favorite clinician...

Psychotic reactions should be seen as attempts to make sense of one's experience and to cope with experiences so difficult that it has not been possible to construct a rational spoken narrative about them. In subsequent stress situation, these experiences may be actualized and a way is found to utter them in the form of a metaphor. This is the prenarrative quality of psychotic experience.

Source: Open dialogues with good and poor outcomes for psychotic crises: Examples from families with violence

In a related vein, I had a good conversation with a friend today. We spoke in some depth about my own experience, including the traumas/losses that preceded it and the manner in which I had expressed this within my own experience.

I had said to my friend today that most people seem to think that the abuse in my childhood is what lead to my later bout with psychosis. It doesn't bother me if that's the impression people walk away with since my essential argument is that trauma can produce ego collapse or fragmentation. It's the fragmentation experience that removes the ego and that's what Campbell is referring to in his passage and what I also experienced -- mystical/transpersonal states.

Nonetheless, although that earlier abuse certainly did play a role in what later came to be, I could speak to those things. My experience of psychosis was my attempt to come to terms with that which was unspeakable; the things I couldn't say out loud but could symbolize. Of course, I have the advantage of knowing exactly what I was referring to with those actions. I know that it all makes sense if you have just one piece of missing information but that's the piece of information I have the most difficulty with. Guy spoke to something very similar in a post of his the other day...

What do i need? I need these therapists and doctors to f*cking listen to the small details, this isn't about what is happening now this is about the f*cking trauma again and this is about my PTSD coming back again and hiding in everything.

Source: When your life fails...

There are only a very small handful of people in this world who know what "the unspeakable" is all about. I, of course, knew what it was all about from the start. I appreciated my friend's patience, sitting with me today. I found it difficult to speak but I did because I felt this person could hear me, they would not judge me harshly, and they would understand how difficult it was to be who I was in that time and place of my life.

For me, psychosis was about losing important people in my life and with those losses, feeling that piece of myself peel away. Then, it was about experiencing trauma while I was already in an open and vulnerable state. It was about having no one I could talk to about what I was feeling.

Recovery from psychosis was about finding people I could talk to. It was about grieving my losses. It was about coming to terms with vulnerability and pain. It was about learning the art of self-compassion. It was about redefining myself and my experience in terms that were not demeaning or implying that my responses -- of shock, of horror, of repugnancy, of anger, of despair, of pain -- these were not wrong. I was responding to a human situation as a human being. Other human beings have felt the same sorts of things I did.

I don't have any problem acknowledging that a neurochemical response was involved in my experience and have questioned the roles of adrenaline and cortisol in my own experience. I have also often pointed out, I am having a neurochemical response to this conversation -- why would I not have one to life experiences that were so overwhelming, they produced fragmentation?

Clinical psychologist, Bertram Karon also speaks to the issue ...

PTR: Yes. What do you think causes schziophrenia?

BK: It's really, if you look at all the data we have and all the case studies... schizophrenics are very sick human beings. What it really is, is primarily, a chronic terror syndrome. We're supposed to feel terrified for a minute, maybe for half an hour when there's a danger but if you feel you are in danger of being destroyed and you have to live that way for days, weeks, months, or years... the toll on you is terrible. All of the symptoms of schizophrenia are either aspects of the terror syndrome or defenses against it. And that includes, the catatonic state where people become rigid which we've demonstated in animals occurs when they seem they are on the verge of dying. The hallucinations and delusions which all human beings are capable of doing but most of us will never have to do...

The best evidence of this goes back to WWII. There was a situation in WWII where every solder who went through it -- and they were always sent for treatment -- looked like the sickest, most chronic schizophrenics. And the situation was very simple: people were out there shooting at you, trying to kill you. And so you dug a foxhole as quick as you could and you could barely get into it, and as soon as you could barely get into it, you got into it, so you wouldn't die. And they kept shooting at you trying to kill you, so you didn't move... when your food ran out you stopped eating... if you had to urinate or defecate you did it on yourself. And if this went on for more than three days and nights, every single soldier looked like the most chronic, sickest schizophrenic. The strange thing was however, if they were reasonably healthy people beforehand, when brought to a place of security and safety and just given rest, they got better spontaneously.

Source: Schizophrenia and Therapy

Overall, I think that if we hope to understand what "mental illness" is, and in particular, the states of mind that are considered to be severe forms of the same, we also need to be willing to examine the variety and depth of life experience and our individual response to same. Trauma played a significant role in my own experience of ego collapse but that will not be true for all people who have experienced psychosis. It does seem to be true for a number of them however, and that facet of reality is something that some people cannot accept for themselves.

~ Namaste

Music of the Hour: Gallagher's Song

[As an added note: My apologies to those who may have sent me mail recently that I've not yet responded to. Life keeps me very busy in a number of avenues and I don't always get to my various mailboxes. I try to get to the ones that are urgent but even this can sometimes take a while.]

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This was a surprising find in my wanderings today...

We abide by the tenet that it is not justified to lock up people for something they might do, for this is an infringement on our freedom. But not so with mental “patients.” They are kept for indeterminate, and often interminable, periods for what they might do. One might ask why the myth of their dangerousness persists and why we apparently feel a strong compulsion to lock them up. The answer would necessitate a book in itself. Probably much of it, however, revolves around our need to scapegoat another group (in this case, mental “patients”).

The final line of that statement perfectly describes the act of shadow projection.

The Scapegoat

Historically the scapegoat was an actual goat that carried the sins of the tribe and then was slaughtered and given to the gods. Nowadays, the slaughter is only figurative and the goat itself is not used. Instead human individuals or groups of individuals carry the projections.

Source: The Collective Shadow in Jungian Psychology: Dangers of Groupthink and Public Scapegoating by Media

... Meantime, the author of the quote above is none other than E. Fuller Torrey. Apparently, he was once an ardent admirer of Thomas Szasz. I can't help but wonder, what changed...

Psychiatric Fraud and Force

E. Fuller Torrey (1937 -) is the most prominent advocate of forced psychiatric treatment in the United States today. He views this goal as so lofty that he boasts of using fraud to acheive it (Mencimer, 1998).

Torrey did not always extol fraud and force. Until at least 1974, he agreed with my view that "mental illness" is a myth and shared my objections to involuntary psychiatric interventions and the insanity defense.

In his book Death of Psychiatry (1974), Torrey reprised every one of my criticisms of psychiatry -- from my assertion that mental illness is a myth to my contentions that mental hospitals are prisons ... often with the same arguments and language that I use. If imitation is the highest form of flattery, then Torrey was paying me a great compliment indeed. Here are some illustrative excerpts:

“Diseases are something we have, behavior is something we do.” On this premise, Torrey develops his theory that the vast majority of people whom we call “mentally ill” have problems of living rather than physical disabilities. They are not “sick” and therefore must not be “warehoused” and “treated” on the basis of a medical model.

-- E. Fuller Torrey (1974, dust jacket)

A mental “disease” is said to be a “disease” of the mind... But a “mind” is not a thing and so technically it cannot have a disease... At this point, disciples of the medical model may answer: “What we really mean, of course, by mental ‘disease’ is brain disease. We mean that the structure and function of the brain are impaired.’ Brain disease, in this line of thought, is like kidney, liver, or thyroid disease. It is the impairment of structure or function of an organ. And by talking about brain disease, we are not in danger of creating another mysterious organ called the mind. In fact, there are many known diseases of the brain... Tumors, multiple sclerosis, meningitis, and neurosyphilis are some examples. But these diseases are considered to be in the province of neurology rather than of psychiatry...

None of the conditions that we now call mental “diseases” have any known structural or functional changes in the brain. . . . This is true not only for conditions with labels like “explosive personality” and “paranoid personality,” but also for the behavior we categorize as “schizophrenia”.

-- E. Fuller Torrey (1974, pp. 36, 38-39)

[Note that Torrey goes out of his way to include schizophrenia among the alleged diseases not identifiable by structural or functional changes in the brain.]

“Doctors” who are not doctors, and “hospitals” which are not hospitals comprise the world of psychiatry... Mental “hospitals” are not only like prisons—they are much worse... Another fallacy about mental “hospitals” which is frequently used to justify them is that they protect society from large numbers of “dangerous mental patients.” In fact, the number of individuals in these “hospitals” who can be considered as dangerous is infinitesimal.

-- E. Fuller Torrey (1974, pp. 56, 69, 75)

We abide by the tenet that it is not justified to lock up people for something they might do, for this is an infringement on our freedom. But not so with mental “patients.” They are kept for indeterminate, and often interminable, periods for what they might do. One might ask why the myth of their dangerousness persists and why we apparently feel a strong compulsion to lock them up. The answer would necessitate a book in itself. Probably much of it, however, revolves around our need to scapegoat another group (in this case, mental “patients”).

As Szasz points out, a drunken driver is infinitely more dangerous to others than is a “paranoid schizophrenic,” yet we allow most of the former to remain free while we incarcerate most of the latter... Involuntary confinement of “mental patients” is the rule, not the exception... It should not be possible to confine people against their will in mental “hospitals.”

-- E. Fuller Torrey (1974, pp. 76, 89, 85, 180)

Usually when a person says he wants to kill himself, we just label him as mentally “ill,” therefore not responsible, therefore a candidate for the locked mental “ward” until he changes his mind... Regarding a person who is adjudged to be “dangerous to others,” such a person should be dealt with in a judicial rather than a medical manner.

-- E. Fuller Torrey (1974, pp. 180, 181)

When the concept of nonresponsibility is rejected outright, then people who [sic] we have called mentally “ill” are given back some of their dignity... Furthermore, there would be no such thing as depriving a person of his right to stand trial. Everyone would retain this civil liberty as guaranteed by the Constitution and it could not be usurped by a psychiatrist or a judge.

-- E. Fuller Torrey (1974, p. 179)

Until we have more precise indicators, it is best that we err on the side of labeling too few, rather than too many, as brain diseased. In other words, a person should be assumed not to have a brain disease until proven otherwise... This is exactly the opposite of what we do now as we blithely label everyone who behaves a little oddly “schizophrenic.” Human dignity rather demands that people be assumed to be in control of their behavior and not brain diseased unless there is strong evidence to the contrary. (p. 161)

-- E. Fuller Torrey (1974, pp. 97, 104; Chapter title and subhead: Mental “Disease” as Preventable: The Road to Psychiatric Fascism; The Psychiatrization of Social Problems.)

If behavioral scientists come into the courtroom at all, they should come clearly labeled as a witness for either the defense or the prosecution. Such a scheme has been previously suggested by Szasz... When psychiatrists go out into the community, they inevitably follow the road to psychiatric fascism.

-- E. Fuller Torrey (pp. 183, 187)

Medicine is adequate for understanding human tissues but we need a model for understanding human issues. The major threats to our existence are no longer intracellular and intercellular but rather intrapersonal and interpersonal. We are the generation of Auschwitz.

-- E. Fuller Torrey (1974, p. 200)

When
The Death of Psychiatry
was ready for publication, Torrey asked me to write a blurb for it, which I did. I wrote,

Dr. Torrey presents a reasoned review of the mythology of “mental illness” and the persecutory practices of psychiatry... His work should help to make psychiatric barbarities couched in the idiom and imagery of medical care morally more distasteful and hence politically less useful. I commend his courage and recommend his book.

When the book was published, Torrey presented me with an inscribed copy. The inscription reads,

"To Tom, with many thanks for saying nice things about the book. If it has 1/10th the effect which your books have had, I shall be happy.

Fuller
.”

Source: Psychiatric Fraud and Force: A Critique of E. Fuller Torrey by Thomas Szasz [PDF File]

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yo mary, same thing happened to me. At first I thought what i was experiencing was "less real" or inferior in some way to how I experienced life before, But then it started to terrify me. Became very paranoid. Then I started to understand it somewhat, and then I become more or less comfortable, and actually began to see it as being more real....Never been the same since, I also have a lot of ambivalent feelings. Duno if ya know what I mean.

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I find that what I became after the experience is whta many people are naturally. Many people live in the sort of world I came into, but almost naively, beacuse they have never known anything else, they take it for granted.

Then there are people who have never gone through the experience, and are stuck in the place where I used to be.

I think most people are one of those two groups.

Then there are the people who have had glimpses of such an experience, but the feared it, and shut it down, ignored it, thinking it was bad.

Then there are the people, like my uncle, who goes schizo after discovering this other side.

Then there are the people, who like me, who have been one way, and then switch over, but are also sort of both at once.

There some kind of scale. There's some kind of dividing point in the centre of it. Everyone is on it somewhere.

I used to think the scale was simply logical people on one end, and emotional people on the other. But after reading religious texts, it seems that they make a divide between fear and love, or ego and teh soul, in these ideas parallel very much with what I thought of with emotion vs logic, but maybe more fully.

The reason I used to think it was logic vs emotion, was beacuse when i had this experience, I was suddenly much more aware of other people's states.

I became much more socially intuitive then I was before. I looked people completely different form then on. I thought what I was reading into was their emotional states. And I was, but it was more then that.

I know that I had to rationalize things in order not to gte lost in it, even though I wanted to go deeper into it, I forced myself to rationalize things in order to come out of it, to keep me 'sane.' I realized I had to do this when I visited my uncle one day. I was in a very paranoid state. Before this expereince started I had no idea what my uncle would be tripping out about. But this time, when he started tripping out about something, I knew exactly why he was doing it. I didn't want to be my uncle. so I forced myself out of it.

I don't think schizo's see the whole picture. They discover this otherside, and get scared, they get so paranoid. They read into everything as if it has some significant meaning. And it does have some significant meaning, but they have to realise that its meaning does not necessarily have any direct connection with them. This is where I was at first. They are so surprized and shocked to see how intuitive things are, to see how interconnected things are, that they overuse it, the become entranced by it.

I think it is people who had a particularly high ego, that then have this experience, that get lost in it. Their ego, that was so strong and built up, completely collapses. And the only thing that could collapes their ego, must be something great, something powerful. And so the abondon the ego, and forever search for this new power or meaning. But if one had a relatively small ego, its collapes would be less significant, and the discover of this "otherside," would still happen, but it would be less pronounced, and therefore, they would be less likey to read into it so deeply, less aware that anything changed at all..... Perhaps that is what happens to the people who I think are 'naturally/niavely' in this state... On a side note, it is also the people who had a very high ego that discover the divide that have the opportunity to grow and reape huge benefits from it, so long as they can hold on.

And that is fine, but i think both schizo's and the 'naturals' miss the point of the whole expereince. the experience is to make you aware of the divide, in yourself, and in others, and not to favour one over the other, but to appreciate both. Dealing with this divide is hard, I think it is the centre of the human condition. The experince makes you aware of it. But if you get lost in it, you may aswell never have had the expereince, if you are schizo, you're completely abondoning the ego and thus, you are ignoring the divide by choosing one over the other. If you are naive to the experience, then again you may aswell never have had it, becuase you didnt become aware of teh divide. If you are ignorant to it, that is, You know you had the experience but you shut it down, then again, you may aswell never have had it, beacuse you are denying the existence of the divide. I think the thing to do is to become very aware of the divide.

I think that is what religion is about. Religion talks about this divide, however, I think it favours the 'egoless' side of the divide too heavily. ANd while that can be very comforting---especially if you are in a schizo state-----The focus should be about the divide itself.

I dont know if this makes any sense, it is very difficult to put into words.

ambivalent feelings stem from trying to appreciate both sides of the divide properly.

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nathan: There some kind of scale. There's some kind of dividing point in the centre of it. Everyone is on it somewhere. ... I used to think the scale was simply logical people on one end, and emotional people on the other. But after reading religious texts, it seems that they make a divide between fear and love, or ego and teh soul, in these ideas parallel very much with what I thought of with emotion vs logic, but maybe more fully.

Did you happen to catch this thread, nathan: Schizophrenia / Psychosis and the Opposites in the Psyche

The reason I used to think it was logic vs emotion, was beacuse when i had this experience, I was suddenly much more aware of other people's states. I became much more socially intuitive then I was before. I looked people completely different form then on. I thought what I was reading into was their emotional states. And I was, but it was more then that.

That's the domain of the Dynamic Feminine -- on Gareth Hill's Jungian based model, at least. Some people call it being "right-brain-oriented". I came across a reference in some explorations of trauma that made a distinction between brain hemispheres and perspective that I thought was intriguing...

Neurobiology

Individuals experience traumatic events differently. For example, one individual who experiences being mugged at knife point may respond in the moment by complying with the mugger, handing over her wallet while memorizing the mugger's face. She thinks that when she gets out of this situation she will go to the police station, identify the perpetrator, and have him charged. Another individual may become frozen with fear and go to a place inside herself that is often described as a place of "speechless terror." She cannot communicate rationally with herself, or reassure herself about a course of action she will take in the future. At the time of the traumatic event she is convinced that she will die.

How individuals respond to traumatic events may partially come down to the differences between how they process information and feeling.

Those individuals who are able to keep talking to themselves while a traumatic event is occurring, and who keep planning for a possible future, are engaging the left side of their brain. These persons process sequentially and logically. They still feel intense fear, but their left-brain approach to understanding prevents them from being overridden with terror.

Those individuals who process from the right side of their brain experience the world from a more sensory, emotion-laden place. They receive the whole image of the event all at once, with emotion, sensation, and perception heightened. They cannot, in the instant of terror, manage a sequential understanding of the event, nor can they decide in a rational or logical manner what to do next in order to protect themselves. They no longer experience the world through the filters of their cerebral cortex and are entirely, at the moment of trauma, in the right side of the brain. They are, in other words, in a place of "speechless terror." Individuals who experience this are far more likely to develop PTSD.

Source: Recovering Body and Soul from PTSD

It's interesting that you drew a distinction between "logical" (masculine) and "emotional" (feminine) states.

Very interesting what you have to say about the various ego states. I thought some of the things you had to say before were also quite intriguing. I recall you speaking of your uncle then as well...

My uncle went schizo, after discovering the instinctual side of life, but at the same time this happened, his friend was killed, his parents abandoned him, his life hell in all of its corners. IT was best to let go of it all, his mind could not handle worrying about it. All sources of worry come from the ego, and he abandoned the ego for that reason. My uncle was also highly egoic prior to his problems, he was a star highsschool athlete, he raced sailboats at a very competative level, he was good looking, very fit, did very well in school, and so on.

That's consistent with not only my own experience but my experience of speaking with many others who have undergone similar experiences. There is nearly always some sort of significant event or series thereof that preceded their first break. What that event or events are may be understood as challenging or may seem trivial to those who are on the outside of the experience but to the person on the inside of the experience, it's often of profound personal significance and represents something of vital importance to them about them.

I think these events need to be addressed and can often be addressed through psychological treatments, not pharmaceutical. Of course, pharmaceuticals can be brought in as an adjunct if people choose to pursue that avenue and find it helpful but helpful is not the same as necessary.

I think that is what religion is about. Religion talks about this divide, however, I think it favours the 'egoless' side of the divide too heavily. ANd while that can be very comforting---especially if you are in a schizo state-----The focus should be about the divide itself. ... I dont know if this makes any sense, it is very difficult to put into words.

Yes, I've struggled with it at times too. I think that part of what you're saying is what I've also tried to express when I speak of "two worlds". There was that highly symbolic, highly intuitive, fluid inner world that spit me out into the center of the cosmos somewhere and then, there is this logically driven, masculine-oriented, physical world where most people seem to live.

In my own explorations I have hung out with some guru types and I'm not sure if it is possible to live in this world without an ego although perhaps some of the really spiritual greats did do so. It's an area I still explore for myself. Menatime, I did re-build, re-develop, re-structure an ego -- the same way I did the first time -- by re-engaging in relationship with other people, roles, responsibilities, the larger world. Admittedly, there were times I wasn't sure if what I should really be doing was dashing off to an ashram somewhere and meditating for the rest of my life for the benefit of all mankind. I suppose I could have done that but that would have felt, to me, like I was abandoning my husband and children. I didn't want to abandon them so, my decision was made as based on that reluctance.

I have "re-entered" the world of physicality, I have restructured a persona, a mask that covers who I really am on the inside. It was a compromise because I haven't forgotten the world of non-physicality either. That's something else I also still explore for myself.

~ Namaste

See also:

- The Relationship Between PTSD and Psychosis

- How to Produce an Acute Schizophrenic Break

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That's the domain of the Dynamic Feminine -- on Gareth Hill's Jungian based model, at least. Some people call it being "right-brain-oriented". I came across a reference in some explorations of trauma that made a distinction between brain hemispheres and perspective that I thought was intriguing...

Yeah, makes sense to me... I never understood woman, including my mother before going having this experience... which is largely why I made the connection with the emotional side of things (woman being steriotypically 'emotional'). That changed, I'm on much better terms with my mother than I used to be prior to going through this.

It' s not just women that respond to this side of the brain, everbody does. Thats is part of the trip, part of the ego collapse, when you suddenly notice this, you see that everyone else seems to take part in it, and you, urself feel like you have been lost your entire life.

Even very logical, masculine, left brained oriented people take part.

The difference is that the left brained people responed almost subconsiously...They don't even realize that they are responding to something.... But the more right brained a person becomes, they more 'aware' they are of how or what the right brain is responding to.

True, really strongly left oriented people sometimes completely ignore the right side, they will still on some level feel what the right brain is signaling, but for the most part they will nullify it, being so distracted and focused on something the left brain is preoccupied by.

I don't think most people are like that. I think most people are fairly balanced,male or female.

But they also don't really know the difference or the significance of the left or the right, becuase they've never taken one to the extreme. They sit comfortably in balance. You get eccentricities when people loose that balance, when they are very left or very right.

If it really is about the diffrent sides of our brains then I think you get schizo when you make a sudden shift from one extreme to the other. I think I went from fairly strongly left, to being suddenly immersed deep into the right side, and hence my expereince seemed so important and pronounced (and at first pretty terrifying). That shift is so obvious that we make the disticntion between the 'two worlds'. But that distinction is less obvious to people who have never been heavily slanted in the right or left.

Can it go the other way, from right to left? and is that significant at all to the person experiencing it? what that experience is like? Id like to know

In my own explorations I have hung out with some guru types and I'm not sure if it is possible to live in this world without an ego although perhaps some of the really spiritual greats did do so. It's an area I still explore for myself. Menatime, I did re-build, re-develop, re-structure an ego -- the same way I did the first time -- by re-engaging in relationship with other people, roles, responsibilities, the larger world. Admittedly, there were times I wasn't sure if what I should really be doing was dashing off to an ashram somewhere and meditating for the rest of my life for the benefit of all mankind. I suppose I could have done that but that would have felt, to me, like I was abandoning my husband and children. I didn't want to abandon them so, my decision was made as based on that reluctance

I think you can get pretty close. But I don't know if its worth it. My schizo uncle wants to be 'perfect'. He says he's 'working on perfection'. By this he means he wants to be jesus OR what is to say 'egoless.'

What is the difference between a spiritual guru seaking this egoless state, and a schizo seeking it????

Is it simply that the guru came back, out of his psychosis ( as I'm sure any real spiritual person has had), then once stabalized, continued to look for this 'egoless', or perfectness', or this je ne sais quoi?

And the schizo never left his psychosis, in search of it???

And yeah like you said about rebuilding you're ego to get back, it takes some kind of feeling of duty or need to be with the people you love. Its enough to pull you out of it, sort of.

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nathan: What is the difference between a spiritual guru seaking this egoless state, and a schizo seeking it????

One was seeking, the other was not.

Traumatic experiences force victims to face issues lying outside the boundaries of personal and collective frames of reference. As a result they are forced to confront psychological and spiritual challenges that are unfamiliar to the average person. Therapists need to recognise that organisations of self and God are often thrown into question or destroyed by experiences of trauma. The deconstructive power of trauma exposes the lack of substance and cohesiveness that comprises identity and images of God.

Initially, trauma is grounded in pain, loss, and fear. Often it leads to breakdowns. Ultimately, with proper support and guidance, it has the potential to transform individuals into compassionate and deeply spiritual beings.

Traumatic events expose victims to aspects of life that most would prefer to ignore. Trauma creates confrontations with the lack of security and certitude that underlie all human endeavours. It has the power to throw into question or obliterate any organisation of self, God, and humanity. The implications of traumatic events assault anything considered sacred or foundational. Trauma brutally demonstrates that the ego (the rational aspect of consciousness) cannot contain or make sense of certain aspects of life.

Certain experiences, such as peak, near death, and mystical experiences often project individuals into another realm of consciousness that is often referred to as transpersonal or spiritual. At these times the ego is displaced or cracked open. This enables transpersonal dimensions of consciousness to emerge. Many of these experiences, despite their beauty and sublime character, are unnerving and terrifying.

Trauma, in addition to its ability to deconstruct reality horizontally in terms of belief systems and frames of reference, also initiates a vertical deconstruction. It either displaces or obliterates the ego. Victims are thrust into the realm of the Deeper Self without warning and preparation. This brutal exposure illuminates the fact that the ego is a mosaic held together by personal narration, continual feedback from others, and internalised object relations.

Trauma, in spite of its brutality and destructiveness, has the power to open victims to issues of profound existential and spiritual significance. The displacement of the ego forces confrontations with deeper levels of self and reality. Trauma throws victims onto a path that mystics, shamans, mythic heroes, and spiritual seekers have been walking for thousands of years. The difference is that victims of trauma must work this territory or be overcome by it. Non-traumatised seekers have the luxury of getting off the path at will; for theirs is not a life or death struggle.

Source: Spirituality & Trauma

I was not seeking previous to my experience. I am now.

And yeah like you said about rebuilding you're ego to get back, it takes some kind of feeling of duty or need to be with the people you love. Its enough to pull you out of it, sort of.

Gareth Hill's model actually speaks to some critical aspects of the schizophrenic experience. I don't have time to pull those details out right at the moment but I'll come back and do so. For now, what I will say is I think there is a period of time when people benefit from the nurturing aspects of the Static Feminine -- this is especially so in the earliest stages of recovery when they may be very open and wounded.

Static Feminine - Positive Qualities

- Organic, undifferentiated wholeness

- Uterus, nature-in-the-round

- Being and self-acceptance

- The Great Mother (Archetype)

Static Feminine - Negative Qualities

- Smothering entanglement

- Inertia, ensnaring and devouring routine

- Stupornous, mere existence

- The Devouring Mother (Archetype)

If people don't get that nurturing then, it's probably not all that different from when an infant doesn't get the nurturing they require from their own mother. This is where issues of forced treatment can be very damaging and people learn to not trust, anyone.

If they move successfully through that phase, there is then a time when they need to come into the energy of the Static Masculine.

Static Masculine - Positive Qualities

- Order

- Rules and regulations

- Systems of meaning

- Hierarchies of value

- Theories of truth

- Standards

- Persona

- The Great Father (Archetype)

Static Masculine - Negative Qualities

- Inflation

- Willfulness and determination

- Rape, directed violence

- Life-taking technologies

- Disregard for nature and ecology

- The Despot (Archetype)

The Static Masculine is related to developing order, structure, a persona. This is very much a critical aspect of "re-building".

I've been working to understand some of these concepts better myself but I can also see where they have played a role in my own recovery.

More thoughts later.

~ Namaste

Music of the Hour: Bird York ~ In the Deep

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  • 2 weeks later...

Hello nathan,

you had originally asked: What is the difference between a spiritual guru seaking this egoless state, and a schizo seeking it????

The difference is that the guru (or someone actively following some form of spiritual/religious path) has made the choice to follow that path whereas the individual labelled "schizophrenic" did not make the choice -- he/she was thrust upon it. Whether it was self-chosen or other chosen, there is often a great deal of common ground. For example, here is an excerpt I've shared here before although I'm not sure if you've read it...

... nothing around us seems solid or trustworthy. On all levels, our consciousness becomes attuned to endings and death. We notice the end of conversations, of music, of encounters, of days, of sensations in the body on a powerful cellular level. We sense the dissolution of life moment to moment. ... As our outer and inner worlds dissolve, we lose our sense of reference. There arises a great sense of unease and fear, leading ... into a realm of fear and terror. "Where is there any security?" "Wherever I look, things are dissolving." In these stages we can experience this dissolution and dying within our own body. We may look down and see pieces of our own body seeming to melt away and decay, as if we were a corpse. As the realm of terror deepens, periods of paranoia may arise. In this stage, wherever we look, we become fearful of danger...

Source: Forms of Spiritual Emergency - Ego Death/The Dark Night

Here's another quote from a different source...

And remember, there is going to be an interim period, an interval, when the ego will be shattered, when you will not know who you are, when you will not know where you are going, when all boundaries will melt.

You will simply be confused, a chaos.

Because of this chaos, you are afraid to lose the ego. But it has to be so. One has to pass through the chaos before one attains to the real center.

Source: Ego - The False Self

Here's yet another...

"I then felt some part of myself slip down through the crack in the pavement, down to the underworld, while another part of myself remained upon the pavement. I am currently trying to make further sense of this experience in relation to Ancient Egyptian belief, as, certainly during the early dynasties, they had a working knowledge of the Land of the Dead, much of which has been fortunately rediscovered, and is known to us as The Egyptian Book of the Dead."

Source: Embracing the Fragmented Self

Two of those accounts above are drawn from "spiritual literature"; one is the personal account of a "schizophrenic". I collected the above accounts because all of them shared features in common with my own experience.

Meantime, I suspect that many people are capable of experiencing an egoless state but how they respond to that and whether or not they successfully pass through it can be dependant upon the environment they are in and the people they are with. Here is yet another example...

Allan: ... there are some classic studies involving patients with paranoid schizophrenia and counter delusions. One of them involved putting several male patient together who each believed they were Christ. It was thought that the illogic of so many of them being Christ would snap them out of their delusional thinking. Sadly, it failed and, in fact, they had no effect on each other at all. They simply did not pay attention to the same delusion the others had. It was sad.

Source: Can A Mind Be Sick

In my own experience there was a point where I said, "I think I'm Jesus and I just killed the Devil." If we were to interpret that statement symbolically what we hear is, "I have just used Love to conquer Fear," nonetheless, it wasn't an interpretation I or my husband were capable of making at that time. I'm surprised he did not take me to a hospital. Instead, he said, "I think you need some sleep." This was true -- I not slept or eaten in about ten days. Meantime, when I related the above to a friend of mine, one of the friends I credit with helping me through that period, he told me this story in response...

Ram Dass was going to visit his brother who was locked up in a mental hospital at the time. Ram arrived at the hospital dressed in a flowing gown. His hair and beard were long and he was barefooted, with sandals on his feet. His brother on the other hand was dressed in a three-piece business suit with short, slicked back hair and polished black shoes.

The brother said to Ram, "Why is it that I think I'm Jesus and I'm dressed like this and locked up, but you think you're Jesus and you're dressed like that but free to go?"

Ram replied, "The difference is you think you're the only one."

The approach Allan described is more or less the voice of the medical model. It sends a message that tells people they're sick, they're wrong, they have a brain disease that they can never recover from but the approach that I received spoke from a different place. It sent the message that I had been through a profound experience that other people had also gone through and had found meaning in. It humanized my experience as opposed to isolating me, alone, within it. It implied I could move through and beyond it.

I had not been a "seeker" previous to my experience but through a fortunate stroke of good luck, I ended up in the company of a few people who had been spiritual seekers. This too may be part of the reason why I have recovered. By the time I found out there was supposed to be something wrong with my brain, my experience, my chances of being well, it was too late -- I was already well on my way.

BEYOND ALL THE MADNESS

BEYOND ALL THE TRUTH

IN THE EYE OF THE NEEDLE

IN THE EYE OF THE SOOTH

LAY A GLISTENING TELLING

ALL CRYSTALINE BLUE

OF JUST WHO I AM

AND JUST ...

WHO

ARE

YOU

©spiritual_emergency

Can you imagine how it might have been different for yourself, your uncle or the millions of other people who undergo these kinds of experiences if those around them said, "It's going to be okay. Your ego has collapsed/died. You are experiencing the world symbolically. That rotting flesh you smell, that image of seeing your body in pieces, the sense that you have melted into nothingness -- that signifies the death. That terror you feel is the Shadow. The Christ you identify with is the Self. That man/woman who is with you is the Anima/Animus. These opposing forces all fit together and we can put them back together if we understand where and how they fit..."

In psychological terms, the Christian doctrine of the descent of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost is said to represent the entry of the unconscious into consciousness, the raising into consciousness of conflicts that were previously unconscious but now have to be faced. Consciousness has to separate the opposites joined in nature in order for it to be aware, for the essence of consciousness lies in telling differences, in discrimination. Jung comments that this coming to consciousness of incarnation of God in human life necessarily means the suffing of opposites. Incarnation is the conscious experience of the terrible contradiction within the psyche. It is the experience of good and evil, light and darkness.

Christ's suspension between good and bad thieves is said to tell us that the growth and differentation of consciousness inevitably lead to the crucifixion of the ego (the Son) to the intense suffering necessiated by our suspension between "irreconcilable opposites". We have to be crucified with Christ. We are involved, Jung says, in a moral suffering of opposites fully equivalent to physical crucifixion. Jung enjoins us not to repress the painful states of consciousness resulting from the manifestation of the separated opposites but to experience them fully. Only thus is consciousness expanded and made whole. The ego is what has to be sacrified. It must "let go" and give up centrality of position. Consciousness (the Son) must let itself be set aside so that the unconscious (the Father) can have the opportunity it needs.

The life of Christ, Jung remarks, is the story of a human being transformed by his destiny. The events in Christ's life are the story of the psyche and happen everywhere. Jung views our present age as a stage in the development of the psyche. We modern Westerners are far removed from God (the unconscious), and our ego must die to itself to reach God. This is said to be foretold in the cruxifiction of Christ.

Source: Psychology & Religion: Classical Theorists & Contemporary Development

What if we told people this story instead of telling them the story of a flawed brain? Perhaps, that would demonstrate full well the difference I am speaking of.

Music of the Hour:

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As an addendum to the above (because it wasn't long enough already ;) ):

"Consciousness (the Son) must let itself be set aside so that the unconscious (the Father [*]) can have the opportunity it needs."

I would argue that the archetype of the Mother, or the Dynamic Feminine better represents the unconscious. Ego consciousness arises from the mother but it is masculine energy that is given to creating order out of chaos. The feminine is the pregnant possibility; the masculine structures it.

To Juan at the Winter Solstice

There is one story and one story only

That will prove worth your telling,

Whether as learned bard or gifted child;

To it all lines or lesser gauds belong

That startle with their shining

Such common stories as they stray into.

Is it of trees you tell, their months and virtues,

Or strange beasts that beset you,

Of birds that croak at you the Triple will?

Or of the Zodiac and how slow it turns

Below the Boreal Crown,

Prison to all true kings that ever reigned?

Water to water, ark again to ark,

From woman back to woman:

So each new victim treads unfalteringly

The never altered circuit of his fate,

Bringing twelve peers as witness

Both to his starry rise and starry fall.

Or is it of the Virgin's silver beauty,

All fish below the thighs?

She in her left hand bears a leafy quince;

When, with her right hand she crooks a finger, smiling,

How may the King hold back?

Royally then, he barters life for love.

Or of the undying snake from chaos hatched,

Whose coils contain the ocean,

Into whose chops with naked sword he springs,

Then in black water, tangled by the reeds,

Battles three days and nights,

To be spewed up beside her scalloped shore?

Much snow is falling, winds roar hollowly,

The owl hoots from the elder,

Fear in your heart cries to the loving-cup:

Sorrow to sorrow as the sparks fly upward.

The log groans and confesses:

There is one story and one story only.

Dwell on her graciousness, dwell on her smiling,

Do not forget what flowers

The great boar trampled down in ivy time.

Her brow was creamy as the crested wave,

Her sea-blue eyes were wild

But nothing promised that is not performed.

~ Robert Graves

See also: Prodromal Psychosis / Onset of Schizophrenia

Music of the Hour:

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More from the book I quoted from above...

But Christ dying anticipates Christ rising: self-surrender announces reconciliation with the Father. Jung says that Christ is the typical God who dies and transforms himself and is the model of human destiny in our times. Christ rises again on the third day and, his humanity transformed, is reunited with his Father through the agency of the Holy Spirit. Jung says that the opposites between which we are presently torn can be reconciled by the Holy Spirit, the archetypal symbol of reconciliation. The Spirit can effect a balance between the opposites. According to Jung, the suffering of the opposites spells an important increase in consciousness. It means we are on the way to our lost wholeness and an experience of the God within. Jung comments that when wholeness is attained, we shall have found God again the only way God can be found: as a numinous totality embracing both good and evil. We shall have attained the Self, our creator, our totality and our goal. And the self -- the God, the God-image -- will have achieved consciousness. Just as we humans were once manifested out of God, Jung remarks, God will be manifested out of us.

All in all, then, psychic wholeness is acheived through enduring the opposites. The suffering of the opposites is a necessary step on the way to the reconciliationof differentiated opposites in the unity and wholeness of the Self: the path to resurrection is through suffering and death. Incarnation -- individuation -- is complete when human life attains the divine realm, and God descends into the human. Jung commented that the ego's isolation is then overcome, consciousness is broadened, the conflict ceases, and the unconscious shows its favorable side. Evil is then included in the psychic totality of the Self and, balanced by good, loses its destructive power.

The Holy Spirit, Jung remarks, is an autonomous psychic happening, a "reconciling light" in the darkness of the mind, with the power to transform chaos into order. When God is not projected, Jung says, he can be found within, where he is presently slumbering. Individuation, our relationship with the God within and our true individuality, is attainable. Jung thus views the present state of divided opposites and darkness as preliminary to a future union of God's opposites, a union that will amount to no lesss than the realization of the saying, "You are gods,". The attainment of individuation is a relation to the infinite which is said to be our true life's goal. If we fail in this regard, we throw ourselves into things that have no final importance. We become taken, for example, with our beauty or our cleverness.

Life seeks completeness, says Jung, not perfection. A complete life is said to be the work of the Holy Spirit, who leads into all kinds of dangers and, at the same time, into consciousness -- the wider consciousness created by the Holy Spirit is the very goal of God's incarnation. Without error and sin, there is said to be no experience of union with God. This, says Jung, is what it means to serve God: to be an active participant in the emergence of light out of darkness, to further God's becoming conscious of his creation and the human being becoming conscious of his or her Self. We meet the God yet to be transformed when we confront the unconscious. Jung finds in the progressive incarnation of God in human life, the real history of the world.

Source: Psychology & Religion

See also:

- Paul Levy ~ The Tension of the Opposites

- St. John of the Cross and Dr. C.G. Jung

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The following was earlier posted in a thread titled, Isn't it all about coping...

Stanzas Of The Soul

1. One dark night,

fired with love's urgent longings

- ah, the sheer grace! -

I went out unseen,

my house being now all stilled.

2. In darkness, and secure,

by the secret ladder, disguised,

- ah, the sheer grace! -

in darkness and concealment,

my house being now all stilled.

3. On that glad night,

in secret, for no one saw me,

nor did I look at anything,

with no other light or guide

than the one that burned in my heart.

4. This guided me

more surely than the light of noon

to where he was awaiting me

- him I knew so well -

there in a place where no one appeared.

5. O guiding night!

O night more lovely than the dawn!

O night that has united

the Lover with his beloved,

transforming the beloved in her Lover.

6. Upon my flowering breast

which I kept wholly for him alone,

there he lay sleeping,

and I caressing him

there in a breeze from the fanning cedars.

7. When the breeze blew from the turret,

as I parted his hair,

it wounded my neck

with its gentle hand,

suspending all my senses.

8. I abandoned and forgot myself,

laying my face on my Beloved;

all things ceased; I went out from myself,

leaving my cares

forgotten among the lilies.

Source: St. John of the Cross ~ Dark Night of the Soul

That poem is reputedly about union with "God". The first time I heard it, I didn't quite catch all the words although I did catch the general tone. I thought to myself then, 'Wait a minute now, St. John of the Cross is a male, and God is also supposed to be a male, so... were God and St. John of the Cross gay? Was the ultimate union a homosexual one?'

Then, several years later, I happened across the poem again, and this time I heard this...

~*~

O guiding night!

O night more lovely than the dawn!

O night that has united

the Lover with his beloved,

transforming the beloved in her Lover.

Then I thought to myself, 'Wait a minute now. Who is this female who showed up? Where did she come from? Was St. John of the Cross a woman? Did he sneak some woman in there with him?'

But none of that appeared to be the case.

Then, after I'd done a whole lot more digesting and thinking, I thought that maybe what St. John of the Cross went through was the union of the opposites and as a result of that act... something happened. I suspect in the East the same kind of process might be referred to as moving beyond dualism. Then I started thinking that the entire marriage business was an external act intended to reflect a sacralized inner process. That is a process you go through alone, without any partner but the inner one.

Anyway, I don't know if any of that makes the least bit of sense to you but it is certainly part of the reason what consentual adults do with their bodies and each other does not perturb me. I'm more concerned with what's happening on the inside, not the outside.

~ Namaste

See also:

- The Inner Beloved

- The Balancing and Synthesis of the Opposites ~ Robert Assagioli

Music of the Hour: Loreena McKennitt ~ Dark Night of the Soul

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no, it makes sense to me, I know what you are saying.

That marriage idea may be a bit of a stretch, but who knowss???

But why symbolize these things in the first place? Why not talkabout these things in laymans terms?

Why is the 'holy spirit' a representation of recoponciliation between the opposites of the mind?

why use holy spirit?

Giving someone in schizo mode some of those excerpts would be very comforting, assuming they had some idea what they represented, and well, they would probably catch on since they are schizo... It gives them labels to attach their experiences to, and therefore comfort in knowing that they are not alone.

we have:, ,, the normal person (who hasn'ty had the experience), the schizo, and the spritual gurus, Why don't the spiritual guru's, talk about these things in terms that the 'normal person' finds acceptable? In terms that don't seem so out of this world?

Becuase right now, schizos see this truth in religion, and as soon as they start talking about it the 'normals' freak out and dose em up with drugs and ruin the rest of the schizos life. That's the story of my uncle.

Maybe the schizo was at the point where RAM's brother was at, when he relized that there is god in him, but didnt have RAM to tell him that god is in everyone? IF theses experiences were put in laymans terms, in ways the normals can find acceptable, then they would know what to say to the schizo who says he is jesus, they could be that schizo's RAM, without even having gone through the experience themselves.

Doesn't symbolizing things take us further away from that?

Wouldnt we be perpetuating a system that does not work, by giving schizos religious, symbolic based things to understand their experiences???

We either have to make religion less symbolic, or make society more religious. But you can't do the latter. Religion is meaningless to someone who hasnt had an experience of their own. You cant force religion onto someone the way you can sing the alphabet into someones head. It doesn't work like that. You cant understand religion the way you can understand math. Math is purely hypothetical, anyone can hypothesize. There is no real experience in learning it, it is just a bunch of consecutive hypotheticals you imagine. But religion you need to 'experience', only experiencing it will give meaning to it.

But why not make, instead of religion, a hypothetical system, one that the 'normals' accept. I guess that is what psycology is, but it just hasnt grown up yet, its still in its enfancy, still trying to understand it surroundings?

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nathan: That marriage idea may be a bit of a stretch, but who knowss???

I've touched on this before, in my conversations with Mjolnir and elsewhere. Here again, I am speaking to the symbolism of something and what a marriage represents is union -- the coming together of two apparently disparate forces. In a manner of speaking, the subject of union addresses moving beyond the divide to bring the divide together. This is addressed in a number of "spiritual" texts. But on to your next, most excellent question...

But why symbolize these things in the first place? Why not talkabout these things in laymans terms?

Speaking only for myself... When I speak of these things, I am speaking personally, out of my own experience. In a way, I think this may be useful because it presents the confusion, bewilderment and overwhelmingness of these kinds of experiences as it actually happens. These kind of experiences don't make sense on first approach. It does require going deeper, beyond the surface level in order to understand. You speak of this too when you talk of your own difficulty in trying to present some of these concepts that are rooted in your own personal experience but they're so big, so vast -- how do you pull them down and place them within the context of tiny, confining words? This is where symbolism becomes necessary.

Meantime, to pick up on an earlier theme... Judith Herman, author of Trauma and Recovery says there are two classes of people who "speak" symbolically; one is the mystic and the other is the trauma survivor. (I've often argued that the "schizophrenic" is a bit of both.)

Why is the 'holy spirit' a representation of recoponciliation between the opposites of the mind?

I don't know. I'm hanging out with the idea that this is the transcendent function Jung speaks of. It's the dove, it's Sophia, it's the Dynamic Feminine, it's the "Thundering Perfect Mind" of the gnostics -- concepts that have already been touched on for those who have been fully following along.

Maybe the schizo was at the point where RAM's brother was at, when he relized that there is god in him, but didnt have RAM to tell him that god is in everyone? IF theses experiences were put in laymans terms, in ways the normals can find acceptable, then they would know what to say to the schizo who says he is jesus, they could be that schizo's RAM, without even having gone through the experience themselves.

Again, I don't know. John Weir Perry noted that when he first began encountering this type of content in people's experiences, he attributed it to grandiosity. It took a while before he was able to see the symbolic representation wherein people were expressing an experience -- of betrayal, of compassion, of pain or suffering, of love for one's fellow man, brotherhood, compassion, redemption, rebirth. All of the former are emotional states that can be associated with the symbolism of Christ. I do know that when that friend of mine told me that story about Ram Dass and his brother, it was tremendously grounding. I began to feel then -- much as I had with the symbolism of Kali -- that I had "tapped" into something. It didn't belong to "me" for the "me that was me" was too small to ever contain it. "I" however, could (and did) belong to it. This does speak to the very heart of religious experience -- the Tao, the Sacred Heart, Oneness, Unity.

As for the "normals" understanding... maybe that's too much to ask. Then again, maybe it's not. Something I've tried to do is share information in a way that people who have not had that experience can perhaps, begin to understand and comprehend it. I don't know how successful I am with that. People who have had those experiences however -- they seem to find some resonance, just as I can find resonance in the experiences that you, Mjolnir or Mary share.

I'm going to stop there while I think some more on some of these things. I am enjoying the conversation however.

~ Namaste

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As for the "normals" understanding... maybe that's too much to ask.

They don't need to understand, they just need to say the right thing to the schizo. They need to be a RAM, even if they dont fully understand what the RAM is.

Religion will never be able to make 'normals' capable of that, becuase its symbolizm is by appearance, or by a matter of perspective really, seems too choatic for a 'normal' person, they have no grounds to interpret it and work with it a s atool tohelp a schizo,.

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Spiritual E,

I've really appreciated your contributions here. I find myself wishing you'd go back to school and get a job teaching or practicing therapy in addition to your contributions on the internet - though I might well be underestimating its present and future potential in the spread of ideas and influence.

Like you and many other people who've had experiences often diagnosed as mental illness by the local neighborhood shrink, I'm drawn to Carl Jung and his theories, as he's one of the few who admits to having had similar experiences himself and knows what he's talking about. He is the one big reason I didn't end up in a mental hospital myself.

Unfortunately, the psychological professions largely ignore Jung these days. Instead, they have mostly adhered to the "medical model" or "diseased brain" paradigm that offers almost no treatment beyond powerful drugs to put a stop to what is said to be nothing but dangerous fantasies. And of course the big drugs companies are eager to perpetuate this sad state of affairs because it's quite profitable, so they do their fake research and pass out freebies and goodies to doctors who prescribe lots of their drugs.

But I'm beginning to see signs that some, particularly psychologists, are moving on past the medical model "diseased brain" paradigm that we've been locked into for the past few decades.

Like all new paradigms (according to Thomas Kuhn) these newer theories are built on facts and findings ignored or unexplained by the old paradigm - as the new physics is built on phenomena that the older Newtonian physics couldn't account for. The old medical model paradigm of "mental illness" is incomplete, because it rejects the whole realm of out-of-the-ordinary psychic experiences (mysticism, spirituality, religion, the paranormal, etc.) that human beings have been having for thousands of years. It has no satisfactory explanation of why these reported experiences are so confusingly similar to what it identifies as the delusions of mental illness, or how to know the difference.

Psychologist Isabel Clarke begins her version of the new paradigm thusly (Psychosis and Spirituality, Consolidating the New Paradigm, 2010):

"I start from the recognition of two possible modes in which a human being can encounter their environment. The most normally accessible of these two modes can be described as ordinary consciousness. The other mode is a less focused state in which both psychotic and spiritual experience becomes possible, as well as being the source of creativity and personal growth, to be referred to as 'transliminal". . . . (p. 104)

Clarke suggests that both modes, ordinary consciousness and the transliminal ("across the threshold"), are necessary and valid aspects of being human. The first mode, ordinary consciousness, is based on the "personal construct," or unique model of the world that each human being builds from birth, by making and modifying the hypotheses and predictions that shape his or her perceptions and actions. The second mode, transliminal consciousness, develops when the personal construct is weakened or broken down, leaving the individual open to the psychotic or spiritual experience of "unfiltered" reality.

"Operating within constructs. . . represents normal human functioning. For most people, either some sort of jolt, or a carefully designed process is needed to move them into the other state. This could be a crisis, a ritual or religious ceremony designed to shift consciousness, a drug or meditative practice. For the person with psychosis, the barrier that makes this sort of experience hard to access for most of us, is dangerously loose.

"Once this barrier has been passed, there will be a loss of boundaries and groundedness. For some people, but by no means all, this dissolution of boundaries is experienced as a blissful state of unity with the whole. . . . In the case of mystical experience attained through spiritual practice (or, as often happens, occurring spontaneously). . . managing the transition back to construed reality after the experience generally (but not invariably) occurs naturally and after a short space of time. . . . In psychosis (and drug experiences that go wrong, or shade into psychosis), the orderly return does not happen. The individual finds themselves stranded beyond the reach of their constructs. . . . The desperate sufferer tries to make sense of the unfamiliar environment, clutching at whatever connections come to hand. In this way, delusions. . . are born. . . . internal concerns are experienced as external communication and the person hears voices. Normal thought is disrupted -- or as the psychiatrist would say, disordered." (p. 108-9)

One advantage of this paradigm is that it takes the emphasis off "what caused this" and puts it on "what to do about it." Should the process be stopped with drugs, or should the person be helped to build a new construct that can accommodate both the new experience and "reality"?

For me, the answer was the latter, and I think it would be for many others, too, if they were given the choice.

Mary

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Mary: I find myself wishing you'd go back to school and get a job teaching or practicing therapy in addition to your contributions on the internet...

I do like doing this the way I do it -- as an open exchange of ideas between peers. There's no cash involved but the people who are most likely to benefit probably couldn't afford it within a professional context anyway. I know I couldn't have. I also recognize there is some value in the barrier provided by the online setting. I found it very difficult in the earliest stages of my own recovery to be around people. I used to, in fact, erase my every word as if to erase every trace of me. It was better if I could take in the words I read within my own privacy without anyone else standing over my shoulder.

As for going back to school ... I am learning all the time, in my conversations with others and in the reading I do on my own. I have pored over a few psychological texts but often find myself in opposition to the things they have to say about the experience of psychosis/schizophrenia. Yet, I'd be required to agree, or at least pretend to, in order to get a passing grade.

In the long run, if I was doing this for a living, the necessity of putting food on the table and paying off my student loans might distort my actions -- my words and intent might become radically different because my motivations would become different. Doing it this way probably helps keep it honest. Meantime, my blogs still get somewhere in the range of a 1000 different readers a week. I have no idea who those people are. I assume some are people who have undergone a similar experience and some of them are people who care for people who have undergone such experiences, either within a professional context or as a direct relation.

I'm beginning to see signs that some, particularly psychologists, are moving on past the medical model "diseased brain" paradigm that we've been locked into for the past few decades.

I'm seeing that too although I know that when I share the work of clincians like John Weir Perry, Jaakko Seikkula and Loren Mosher with others, the onus for creating those kinds of programs will fall on them because they're not going to be able to find those programs offered in their own communities. We simply don't offer talk therapy for psychosis/schizophrenia in this culture although people may be able to find a therapist via their own efforts. Some might also be able to move through the experience on their own, making use of various resources, much as you and I did. The vast, vast majority however are probably going to end up in the hospital with drugs and labels that may help or may harm.

I do believe that with the current economic climate, the situation will likely get worse before it gets better -- people will have to learn how to deal with these things on their own because the cost of treatment that is offered is out of the reach of many, including government and social agencies. Maybe though, they'll be willing to learn from programs like Perry's or Seikkula's with their 85% recovery rates once they realize that it's less expensive to offer intensive therapy for a few years in the beginning than it is to pay the disability and medication costs over someone's lifetime. I do believe that many, many more could recover with different approaches.

In the interim, I'll just keep doing what I do, knowing that others are doing the same. ;)

~ Namaste

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But why not make, instead of religion, a hypothetical system, one that the 'normals' accept. I guess that is what psycology is, but it just hasnt grown up yet, its still in its enfancy, still trying to understand it surroundings?

Hi Nathan,

I'm impressed by your knack for insight, it's an admirable and rare quality.

I completely agree with you here, we've had discussions in the past covering the topic of the immature and stunted mental health field. In fact, Mary here is a brilliant crusader in exposing that unfortunate reality, having pursued the field herself in the interest of introducing some genuine and founded wisdom into it. The truth of the matter is that 9 times out of 10 those who are studying and practicing treatment of mental health as a profession have not experienced what they participate in resolving, and further they are being educated by people who likewise have only an observational, objective platform to stand on. This isn't to say that they're wrong at all, in fact I think we all know that they probably understand what people like us are subject to to a greater degree than we do in many ways; but that element of empathy is absent, which is why we flock to each other for grieving and comfort, and why we are attracted to doctors like Jung, who rebuke practices that are concretely fit and predisposed merely to serve the mental health profession's already established interpretations. This harkens back to the old parallel of teaching a blind man color. I think if that man were to commit himself to a formal university education on color, he could learn just about everything there is to know about color even to the point of mastering the concept. But again, how would it ever come together and click into place were he not to just at least once see what he has come to understand supposedly so completely? So in a sense, we have the blind teaching the blind about color.

The reason we attach spiritual significance to schizophrenic episodes is usually because they tend to have spiritual significance to the people experiencing them, even perhaps as nothing more than a method of coping. Were you to be visited by god in your wakeful hours, whether you're religious or not, you'd probably begin questioning a number of things and transition into a more ethereally concerned state of mind. Moreover, many times psychosis has a distinct feeling to it for which there aren't words, and the first thing that comes to mind is that it is spiritual in nature because that's the closest association that can be made. When I first arrived at this forum not all that long ago, it hadn't occurred to me that I have been experiencing psychosis for much of my life, the countless times when I would sit philosophizing in determined concentration, arguing, conversing and bantering with terrible, dark and sinister gods silently within my head, it never even once occurred to me that something was off, I merely thought that there were perhaps mental doorways which were open to me and not to others. During these frequent episodes, however, I had this feeling of transcendence, of spectral ascension, it was disillusioning and the only thing I can think to call it is spiritual because it does not pertain to this physical world. So, we go to our doctors because we are troubled by what we are seeing, who we are talking to, and they tell us "What you are experiencing isn't real because there is no physical evidence." To which we reply "I'm aware that there is no physical evidence, it's a spiritual matter, not a material one." -and all they can do is treat it as though it were a physical matter by physical means, how could they not? There are no spiritual medications, only physical ones that numb us to our non-physical experiences. It's a matter of contrast, if it isn't physical than what else can it be? Further, it would be completely in vain to attempt to force those who haven't had similar experiences to attempt to understand what exactly they are if they don't have physical attributes, and it is easiest for the 'normals', as we are now calling them, to swallow that we feel it is religious or spiritual, because these are the only words in the physical world that can offer a simple blanket definition to the immaterial.

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But there are spiritual medications. Guidence being the most pronounced.

The blind are teaching the blind, but a Guru isnt so blind. A Guru cant really teach the blind colors, but he can teach them how different colors interact (sorta like you were saying between the blind and the blind)

Then when the doctors meets a schizo who says he is jesus, he can interact with that accordingly. No the doctor will not be able to see why or how he is effecting the schizo, But he will act based on an ungrained set of hypotheticals that he has memorized. Liek if the schizo says this, or is doing this, or w/e, then you should act this way, or say so and so.

The doctors cant see the colors, but they could still paint them for the schizo to see. The doctor become purely a tool, a piece of machinery in place of teh guru, who, by creating this machine has just made himself a lot more productive.

Of course it would not be perfect. When the schizo is telling the doctor that he is jesus, there could be things in the very room, in that very moment, that the schizo is freaking out about, and teh doctor, being blind, and having no verbal communication from the schizo, will not be aware of. Things could still go astray.

But that would have to be considered by the guru, who creates a system, and it would still be a lot better than nothing. Maybe it is an impossible task.

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I thought you might enjoy this nathan. It seems to be addressing what we were discussing earlier in terms of two modes of thinking: left brain/right brain; masculine/feminine, etc. I found it on the website of the psychologist Mary mentioned, Isabel Clarke. This isn't her most recent book, it's an excerpt from an older one...

Extract from Chapter 5. ‘the doorsill where the two worlds meet’

These two ways of knowing are based on a constant switching between two information processing modes in the brain, where one or the other can be temporarily in charge. Technically, this is called buffering. Which of the two is currently buffered will determine which side of the threshold we are operating from. The fact that we normally switch constantly means that we do not usually move very far from the door, and get to explore the room, so to speak. That only happens in the more extreme states.

However, the two rooms do have a rather different character. To play with this metaphor, let us imagine the room on this side of the threshold, the rational room, first. I see it with a desk and a computer; probably strip lighting and functional blinds at the window. The shelves are lined with useful reference books, and there is a sensible chair of the sort that does not wreck the back with long sitting. I can take in all the walls and the window at a glance.

The other room is altogether less clear. It seems to go on for ever, but the lighting, which is filtered to create fascinating textures and a muted range of delightful colours, fails to reveal much about the actual contours of the room or its extent. It does not help that these contours keep changing; what is that glimpse of a vista of endless landscape to that side? Turn the head for a moment and the whole appears quite gloomy and confined. What is that sinister shape lurking in the darkest corner? The furniture is similarly non-functional and unstable of state.....

As with all images, this little fantasy of interior design has its usefulness and its limitations. As a picture of the human condition, it is important to remember that we spend our time flitting back and forth between the two rooms, and normally, we never get to settle down in either of them. This does not sound very restful. Recall at this point the distinctly uncomfortable picture of the situation of humanity given in the two myths quoted in Chapter 3; banished from paradise or eternally chained to a rock. Dodging from room to room is not quite as bad as that, but this does appear to be a further example of the discomfort and unease theme.

What is useful to remember from this image is that the mysterious room is always around; we keep nipping into it; its influence seeps into the other one – perhaps some suspect books creep onto those tidy shelves? The odd richly decorated cushion might find its way onto that functional chair?

These two aspects of human experience correspond to the two ways of knowing introduced in the earlier chapters. The functional office represents the rational, either-or logic, way of knowing. The mysterious room with no clear limits corresponds to the relational and emotional, way of knowing that is based on experience. From now on I will refer to this aspect of experience as the transliminal, and the other as the everyday.

Source: Madness, Mystery and the Survival of God

See also: Isabel Clarke: Psychosis & Spirituality

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