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Self-Transformation Through the Experience and Resolution of Mental Health Crises
Get PDFThis study investigated the spiritually positive self-transformation resulting from the experience and resolution of a mental health crisis. To participate in this study, a person’s experience needed to meet 4 criteria: The individual (a) experienced a crisis affecting self-concept and reality testing, which (b) resulted in a transformation that (c) was spiritually positive—that is, integrative and meaningful— and (d) they had no current acute mental health conditions. The study was conducted in 2 phases, the first of which used assessment instruments to evaluate participants’ (N = 35) appropriateness for this study relative to the above criteria. In the second phase, participants (N = 23) were selected to participate in face-to-face semistructured interviews about the overall experience: from pre-crisis through to resolution and integration. The rich interview data generated a composite statement regarding the self-transformational process. The phenomenological research design steered away from focusing solely on the crisis, which often draws great interest in clinical and research settings. Instead, participants were encouraged to exercise semantic freedom and to talk about their whole experience from beginning to end. The common denominator of participation was the experience of a spiritually positive resolution, that is, a transformational growth. Results highlight the importance of acknowledging that such phenomena occur and that they deserve greater consideration, especially in formulating a semantic around the spiritual nature of these and all experiences
Spiritual Emergency: The Understanding and Treatment of Transpersonal Crises
Get PDFThere exists increasing evidence that many individuals experiencing episodes of nonordinary states of consciousness accompanied by various emotional, perceptual, and psychosomatic manifestations are undergoing an evolutionary crisis rather than suffering from a mental disease (Grof, 1985). The recognition of this fact has important practical and theoretical consequences. If properly understood and treated as difficult stages in a natural developmental process, these experiences—spiritual emergencies or transpersonal crises—can result in emotional and psychosomatic healing, creative problem-solving, personality transformation, and consciousness evolution. is fact is reflected in the term “spiritual emergency,” which suggests a crisis, but also suggests the potential for rising to a higher state of being
The Return of Perennial Perspectives? Why Transpersonal Psychology Should Remain Open to Essentialism
Get PDFIn reply to Hartelius’s (2016) response to my paper “From Philosophy to Phenomenology: The Argument for a ‘Soft’ Perennialism” (Taylor, 2016a), I provide arguments in support of my model from contemporary scholars of mysticism, who advocate a move from a philosophically-based perennialism to a phenomenologically-based essentialism. This discussion illustrates that perennialist perspectives are far from outmoded. I discuss the metaphysical aspects of my model, suggesting that there is no reason why transpersonal psychology should not address metaphysical issues, as long as they are secondary to phenomenological issues, and as long as they are based on evidence rather than wholly speculative. Attempts to exclude so-called non-scientific phenomena from transpersonal psychology are based on invalid arguments, including an outmoded concept of the importance of falsifiability. I argue that attempts to explain the commonalities in accounts of spiritual or mystical experiences across and outside traditions through radical di usionism, contextualism, or neuroscientific reductionism are inadequate. I note that these commonalities also feature in accounts of near-death experiences and accounts of intense post-traumatic growth. I also highlight the importance of historical cases of natural wakefulness in individuals with no familiarity with spiritual traditions. I conclude with comments on the nature of recent debates in transpersonal psychology and on the importance of pluralism
Taylor’s Soft Perennialism: Psychology or New Age Spiritual Vision?
Get PDFTaylor has responded to critiques of his soft perennialism model in relationship to what he has called awakening experiences. The fact that some individuals have this type of experience away from the context of religion or spirituality, according to soft perennialism, is explained by a sort of landscape of experience representing the diverse ways in which one may engage with and experience this essential beingness. While this inspiring vision could possibly be true, just as numerous other speculations about ultimate reality might be true; however, the evidence advanced in support of soft perennialism notion is not valid in the context of psychology, or of any scientific endeavor. Taylor\u27s claims that his metaphysical schema is at least partly evidence-based appears to stem from an overly philosophical view of science and a misunderstanding of the nature of valid scientific evidence. As such, soft perennialism is not a psychological theory, but functions more as a New Age spiritual vision. Given that perennialist visions such as Wilber\u27s have received long and careful scrutiny within the transpersonal field, and now play a reduced role, a sober assessment is that perennialist models belong more to the field\u27s past than to its future. At the same time, Taylor\u27s empirical research into a particular type of developmental transformation may contribute importantly
Radical Embodiment for Navigating Deep States of Consciousness
No full textEmbodied mind has become a popular topic in neuroscience, where it has a different meaning than its use in a field such as somatic or transpersonal psychology. The difference can be described using a new concept of attention, which considers not only where attention is pointed, but where it arises within the body. Conventionally, attention is directed only from the head, where the brain and most of the sense organs are concentrated. But in deeper states of consciousness, there is evidence that attention arises in other areas of the body as well, not just in the head. By comparison with ordinary definitions, this might be called radical embodiment. Identifying and mapping the location of attention in deep states of consciousness offers a way to map these states that is not dependent only on qualitative reports by practitioners, and may allow for better comparison across practices and traditions. This may lead to a more useful description of such states. In addition, this offers neuroscience a potentially novel way of understanding the concept of embodied mind, so that embodiment can be understood not only as biological signals sent from body to brain, but as conscious awareness that can potentially extend through the whole person
Dreaming in Sacred Sites: A Content Analysis of Dream Reports
No full textPaul Devereaux, as a part of his work in consciousness and archaeology, enlisted two dozen volunteers to sleep in three reputed sacred sites in England and Wales. Each brought along another volunteer to awaken them during rapid eye movement sleep and request a dream report. These reports were compared with those obtained while the participants were at their homes, sleeping in their familiar beds. Significant differences were observed when both sets of dream reports were subjected to content analysis. Future research needs to incorporate a third setting into the study, namely a group of control sacred sites, locations the participants are told to have been visited over the centuries because of their reputed healing and visionary qualities but, in actuality, lack any such record
Gaia and a Second Axial Age
No full textI propose that an emerging Gaian consciousness is the radiating center of a possible second axial age. While the great achievement of the first axial age was the bringing to consciousness of the universal in its noetic, cosmic, and ethical dimensions, the several axial epiphanies of the universal remained rooted in the exclusive (ethno-linguistic) particularities of their respective culture spheres, and in this sense the universal remained abstract. A central task of the second axial age is the articulation of a concrete universal which could mediate between the particular culture spheres and help them confront their shared predicament: the threat of planet-wide ecological and civilizational collapse. However else we might conceive of the universal-whether in cosmic, religious, or metaphysical terms-it now stands incarnated before us as the planet itself in all its mysterious and numinous complexity. The real-ideal of the concrete universal guides my vision of the global commons and of Gaia as our planetary Common Temple
Beyond Help? Psychoanalytic Thought and the Environmental Crisis
No full textIn therapeutic practice, Freud came to recognize the futility of seeking to treat a patient simply by interpreting their unconscious conflicts. He also stressed that focusing on the notion of cure is detrimental to the course of treatment. Insights of this kind might be employed to challenge assumptions regarding the environmental crisis. While the concerns of environmentalism may seem distant from those of analytic practice, both domains are often significantly preoccupied with the question of what is natural . Examining various responses to the environmental crisis, it will be argued that solutions-focused thinking runs counter both to the underlying assumptions of much environmentalist literature, and to basic psychoanalytic insights concerning the nature of change. It will be suggested that the theme of adaptation is fundamentally opposed to a more substantive shift in consciousness
Working with Space, Working with People: Tantric Non-dual Approaches to Trauma
No full textHow does the deep encounter with our own traumas fuel our own spiritual journeys as therapists and teachers? Specifically, how can we train in pure awareness so that we go as deep into the darkness as we want and need to? And, finally, how might our own, personal trauma work enable us to work more effectively with traumatized students and clients. After reporting some of the presenter\u27s own on-the-ground experiences in his own journey and those of his students, these questions are to be explored and discussed together
Myth in the News
No full textCIIS professor Craig Chalquist explores how myths jump out of the myth books and into our lives, inhabiting current events, our language, politics, and more.https://digitalcommons.ciis.edu/publicprograms/1021/thumbnail.jp