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Decoding Babel: “Ungrieved Futility” and the Unrecognized Order of the Depression Research Field
Full text linkThe field of depression research and theory is a preparadigmatic potpourri of different orientations without a central, consensus definition of depression. This study attempted to address these issues by investigating the depression sub-literatures (cognitive–behavioral, psychoanalytic, evolutionary, biomedical, phenomenological, existential–humanistic, cybernetic, environmental, and religious–spiritual theories) using a comparative analytic methodology, which allows for comparing disparate fields that do not share a common definitional set by relating them to a third concept, in this study the construct of “ungrieved futility” (UF) as a dynamic model of depression. UF defines the objective and/or subjective experience of the permanent loss of an attachment object that initiates the normal grief process, but which is blocked by other factors. As such, UF is one entity with two components. The results showed that UF does describe the core definitional statement about depression of most of the literatures, with the exceptions being the biomedical, behavioral, as well as parts of the environmental and spiritual sub-literatures. It also distinguishes those literatures that frame depression as an entity possessing inherent structure and dynamics from those that see it as an epiphenomenon. Finally, the analysis points to an inherent dynamic in depression which has implications for transpersonal psychology. Thus, this study shows that even without overt integrative theorizing, the field itself already has a wide inherent agreement about the structural dynamics of depression that has not been clearly recognized in existing literature
On the Way to the Altar: An Illustration of Transpersonal Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy
Full text linkThis paper illustrates transpersonal psychoanalytic psychotherapy through a detailed clinical example. A creative synthesis of Voice Dialogue work and Dreamtending, applied through storytelling and active imagination, is presented with a patient who is about to be married. Areas such as the therapeutic relationship including skills, techniques, clinical decisions, goals, interventions and the therapeutic space and presence are explored and discussed throughout the paper as they relate to transpersonal psychoanalytic psychotherapy
Teaching in the Transpersonal Paradigm
Full text linkThis article explores the transpersonal dynamics of teaching by presenting two core themes of The Living Classroom: 1) the synchronicities and energetic resonances that radiated invisibly around me as my spiritual practice deepened over time and 2) the “learning fields” that surround well-taught courses—fields of collective consciousness that can trigger new insights and powerful transformations in our students
Wildfire and Asylum: A Terrapsychological Approach to Backyard Pilgrimage
Full text linkThis paper offers a conceptual framework and embodied practice of finding ones’ psychological roots through mythological re-emplacement. The author utilizes the lenses of depth psychology, terrapsychology, ritual and pilgrimage. The method also focuses on experiences of awe in nature as a catalyst for transpersonal experience. This deeply personal account offers a model for the reader’s own symbolic engagement with the physical, natural and historically rich world around them
Integrating Clinical Intuition for a Whole Person Approach to Empowerment
Full text linkThis paper is a summary of a study utilizing constructivist grounded theory to examine the process of accessing and applying clinical intuition in psychotherapy. Intensive interviews were conducted with 19 psychotherapists to explore their experiences with clinical intuition, including training on the topic, supportive conditions for accessing intuition, and decision making around its application in session. Engagement in an iterative process of data collection and analysis occurred to arrive at the constructed theory: integrating clinical intuition for a whole person approach to empowerment. The theory is comprised of the core categories (a) building trust and confidence to access and use intuition as a therapist, (b) practicing, and (c) empowering clients to connect with their own intuition
Smokable Vine of the Dead : Two Case Studies of Experiencers of Both Changa and Near-Death Experiences
Full text linkIntroduction: Virtually no studies have looked at psychopharmacological combinations as models of the near-death experience (NDE), which is inadequate given the evidently complex neurochemistry occurring near- or at death. An example of such a combination is ‘changa’, a smoked mixture of the psychedelic N,N-DMT and monoamine oxidase inhibitor (MAOI)-containing plants, and as such has been referred to as ‘smokable ayahuasca’ (vine of the dead). Only very few studies, yet not systematically, have included experiencers of both NDEs and psychoactive substances. Methods: Two case studies are presented of individuals who have experienced both a near-death experience and a changa experience, making them invaluable in this comparative project. Interviews were conducted encompassing the content of both experience types, as well as the participants’ reflections on, including quantification of, perceived comparability. A detailed content analysis was performed and the presence or absence of each feature between the two experiences is tabulated. The near-death experience scale was also applied for both states as a quantitative measure. Results: Case SR (NDE from misaligned vertebra) reported high, while case DA (NDE, initially, from allergic reaction) reported medium perceived similarity between their NDE and changa experience, supported also by their NDE scale scoring. SR’s changa experience, however, shared only 36% of features with his NDE. Despite this, there were only a few notable differences in features with neardeath experiences at large (exhibiting 83% similarity with NDEs at large)—and the presence, and ordering, of other features is strikingly NDE-resembling. Although, the content by which these appeared was idiosyncratic of DMT. DA’s changa experience shared a comparably low-moderate 42% of features with his NDE, and did appear to entail more discrepancies with NDEs in general, which were classically DMT-like (but also exhibiting 83% similarity with NDEs generally). Despite this, several other features, though again DMT-like in content, appeared particularly NDE-resembling. Discussion: These similarities, to greater and lesser degrees, in both features and content, qualitatively and quantitatively, between the NDE and the DMT-MAOI admixture across the case studies are discussed in light of semantic analyses and physiological studies suggesting monoaminergic activity near-death, motivations for drug-induced re-experiencing of the NDE, and implications of state-dependent memory mechanisms
Relational Education and Activism
No full textJoin Weaving Earth and Queer Nature in an exploration of attention. Together, this panel will explore the holy and queer work of liberating and expanding awareness by recovering personal and collective attention. They will share perspectives on the liberatory possibilities of offering the sanctity of attention back to self and place in the midst of late-stage capitalism and collapse
The Queer Subjective: Everywhere You Go There You Are
No full textWho writes the map? Maps are powerful tools that are used to center particular narratives. Too often the narratives of maps assume to be objective, occupying a unilateral truth. When in actuality, the cartographer’s position creates a context that contains the story of the map. Rather than holding a false objective, subjective mapmaking captures the counter narratives co-existing everywhere, always. By centering and acknowledging the presence of a cartographer’s perspective, a map unfolds into relational story-weaving. How queer!
Join Shmee for a discussion about maps: their power and presence in our lives and communities. Among the counter-mapping strategies presented, Shmee will share a practice from their Wayfinding Workbook for narrative cartography. You can use this practice in a “sit spot” or while moving through space
The Role of Personality In Moving Encounters with Sacred Art
Full text linkIn Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox traditions, the material world is understood to contain access points to the transcendent. An icon may move the awestruck believer to emotional engagement and reflection on moral and religious themes. Personality dispositions potentiating the experience of being moved in religious aesthetic contexts have not been thoroughly studied. The present article describes the development and testing of a cross-sectional study into potential belief and personality-related predictors of being moved by sacred art in a lab environment evocative of a holy site. Ninety (90) Christians in Canada and Greece completed personality measures and viewed and rated thematically matched Latin and Byzantine icons. Findings suggest impacts of attachment, imaginativeness, and traditional vs. mystical dispositions in resonance with sacred art, and point to a secure, mystically oriented perceiver. Those who tended towards structured religious lives also presented with a personality profile favouring logical problem-solving. The paradigm applied the social psychological tradition of an evocative lab situation and use of psychometric tests to pressing questions in aesthetics and transpersonal psychology. This study offers a replicable methodology, inviting further empirical inquiry into the experiential texture of being moved and predictive relationships among individual differences at play in moving encounters
In a Moment: The Texture of Transformative Experience
Full text linkThis paper analyzes the personal narrative of a shocking event. The context of the event is established and the event itself is reflected upon as an experience of time dilation. This moment is examined through Welch’s (2010) elements of deepening time: repetition, attention, and intention, aligning the phenomenon with elements of Gebser’s (1985) integral structure of consciousness to place the experience within the movement toward the integral. Connections identified through the experience offer support for the idea that transcendent experiences of time are possible outside of the event itself and may lend themselves to personal transformation and point toward a method by which experience can be integrated