Schizophrenia As A Transformative Process

So-called 'Schizophrenia' as Transformative Process Much needless suffering results from ignorance of the multidimensional nature of the human psyche, human personality or 'human nature'. Insights into the workings of human nature are revealed by combining Western scientific research with concepts provided by Eastern psychologies concerned with the dimension of human nature beyond the persona, or ‘ego'. The transpersonal or ‘spiritual’ dimension is defined in terms of the understanding of the divinity of humanness and universal moral values. Human values are the social values of social intelligence.… ‘beauty’ as truth, ‘truth’as knowledge, 'knowledge' as understanding, ‘understanding’ as love, ‘love’ as unconditional lovingkindness or ‘compassion’, ‘justice’ as morality, ‘morality’ as freedom of conscience or peace, ‘peace’as social responsibility, ‘wisdom’ as intelligence, ‘intelligence’ as creativity and productivity or ‘creative intelligence’. Awareness of human values, ‘spiritual awareness’, results in spiritual insight and spiritual intelligence or ‘intuition’. Intuition allows for accurate evaluation of the complexities of changing social conditions and is therefore necessary for effective adaptation to the social environment or ‘social adaptability' and survival of the species. The psychiatric profession has created one of the greatest myths of our time by describing so-called 'schizophrenia' as a nonspecific disease or ‘mental illness’. It was German psychiatrist Emil Kraepelin (1856-1926) who originally believed that this supposedly devastating condition involved irreversible mental deterioration so he coined the Latin name 'dementia praecox' meaning 'prematurely out of one's mind'. Later it became clear that the term was a misnomer and a new term was provided in 1910 by the kind and humane Swiss psychiatrist Eugen Bleuler (1857-1939), teacher of Carl Jung and professor of psychiatry at the University of Zürich where he headed the famous Burghölzli Clinic. Since the condition seemed to involve a mental split between thought and emotion, Bleuler coined the term 'schizophrenia' for 'splitting of the mind'. The term is derived from German 'schizophrenie' from Greek 'skhizein' meaning 'to split' and 'phren' of unknown origin meaning 'heart or mind' so that ‘schizophrenia’ actually means 'broken soul' or 'broken heart’. Although there is still no universally accepted definition of the term, it has been applied to various conditions including a set of socially and culturally unacceptable thinking and behaviour patterns so that it becomes a model of ‘unwanted conduct’. In fact so-called ‘schizophrenia’ is not a disease nor is it a hopeless condition but a brilliant condition which is the concern of the psychology of the transpersonal or spiritual dimension of human nature i.e. 'transpersonal psychology'. In the light of transpersonal psychology schizophrenia is a personal 'story' of a natural and temporary self-healing and self-organising process involving the dissolution and removal of illusions and false beliefs which originate from social conditioning. In this sense schizophrenia is a transformative process, a crisis of transformation or ‘psychospiritual crisis’. Furthermore it can be understood as a part of the human condition and as a process which reveals information about the nature of the human psyche or ‘human nature’. Human nature is a moral, spiritual or ‘social’ nature and the human organism is a social organism with instincts for social cooperation and social harmony i.e. ‘social instincts’. Social instincts must be cultivated in a process of development of moral consciousness or ‘conscience’. The function of the conscience is to preserve the integrity or ‘wholeness’of the personality. Rational conscience is the product of moral, spiritual and social development resulting in transformation of the self and the knowledge of one’s human nature or ‘selfknowledge’. Self-knowledge is prerequisite to social or spiritual intelligence required for effective social adaptability. The process of moral or spiritual

development results in the understanding of the ultimate connectedness or ‘unity’of all things i.e. also known variously as 'individuation', 'selfrealisation', 'self-actualisation', 'spiritual renewal', 'spiritual awakening', 'spiritual rebirth’, 'enlightenment' or 'spiritual emergence'. "In the most general terms, spiritual emergence can be defined as the movement of an individual to a more expanded way of being that involves enhanced emotional and psychosomatic health, greater freedom of personal choices, and a sense of deeper connection with other people, nature and the cosmos. An important part of this development is an increasing awareness of the spiritual dimension in one's life and in the universal scheme of things. Spiritual development is an innate evolutionary capacity of all human beings. It is a movement towards wholeness or 'holotropic state', the discovery of one's true potential." (Stanislav Grof) Spiritual emergence is a gradual dynamic, fluid, naturally ordered and integrated on-going process of personal development into greater maturity and spiritual awareness. The process involves personal evolution from the limited sense of self or 'ego' and its egocentric perspective to the expanded sense of self beyond ego, the ‘higher self’, the ‘authentic self’ or 'Self' and its transpersonal perspective. Transcendance of the ego or ‘ego-transcendance’ allows for expansion of consciousness and heightened awareness resulting in an inner sense of emotional liberation. Intuition is purified and sharpened thus allowing for a clearer more accurate perception of reality and the discovery of ideas and behaviours which are effective for social adaptability. Spiritual emergence is the source of personal power because it allows for the attainment of knowledge of one's true nature (‘self-knowledge’) as the source of motivation for personal productiveness and creativity or ‘work’ (‘self-empowerment’). Complete spiritual development takes place over a period of years and depends on conditions of freedom and education which allows for the complete development of the person as a whole i.e. 'holistic education'. Holistic education is based on respect for the biologically based motives for human behaviour or ‘human needs’. Human needs include both 'lower' psychological needs for security and self-esteem - the 'ego needs' - and 'higher' psychological needs for moral development, the instinctive yearnings for human values, the spiritual needs or ‘metaneeds’. Motivation by the metaneeds ('metamotivation') allows for the discovery of one’s true potential. Each person is at a different stage of spiritual emergence depending on the level of their moral or spiritual development. If in highly sensitive individuals the processs of spiritual emergence is blocked for any reason then they might undergo a period of crisis or ‘emergency’ involving the rapid formation of essential adjustments for effective adaptation. The transformation process of spiritual emergence can be so dramatic as to become uncontrollable ‘spiritual emergency’, also known by many names: transpersonal experience, transpersonal crisis, psycho-spiritual transformation, psychospiritual crisis, spiritual journey, hero's journey, dark night of the soul, spiritual opening, psychic opening, psychic awakening, spiritual awakening, enlightenment, kundalini awakening, kundalini process, kundalini crisis, shamanic initiation, shamanic crisis, psychotic-visionary episode, ego death, ego loss, alchemical process, positive disintegration, post traumatic stress disorder with psychotic features, night sea journey, psychosis, shamanism, mysticism, gnosis, inner apocalypse, and so on. Spiritual emergency is characterised by spontaneous alternative consciousness states or ‘realities' in which the person experiences unbearably distressing psychic overload involving chaotic and overwhelming sensory experiences which in fact offer invaluable opportunities for personal growth and positive transformation. Spiritual emergency is a process of healing and renewal which involves the

dissolution and removal of illusions and false beliefs originating in the programming of social conditioning. The conditioning leads to the formulation of aberrant thought complexes and these prevent the person from making accurate evaluations of their social environment. Inaccurate evaluations lead to inappropriate decision-making and non-adaptive behaviour patterns. In a period of crisis, the person instinctively surrenders to the organismic process which involves the temporary separation of thought and emotion (‘ego-loss’) which is necessary for the reassessment of their thoughts without having to deal with the emotional implications. The apparently bizarre speech and behaviour patterns reveal the passage from lower to higher consciousness states in which the person experiences a series of varying stages or ‘episodes’. These can be frightening and confusing to onlookers because they appear to be out of context with everyday reality and as a result they are often misunderstood. They are mistakenly believed and discredited to represent ‘symptoms’ of disease or ‘mental illness'. Perceived as pathological they are considered to be medically ‘treatable’. In fact the apparent 'symptoms' are manifestations of a spontaneous healing effort by the organism as a whole. The person eventually learns to grow beyond fear based egoconsciousness, beyond cultural conditioning and the ‘conditioned self’, beyond the expectations of others and towards the new transpersonal, moral or ‘spiritual’ dimension of awareness which allows for development of personal potential and effective social adaptability. The successful outcome of spiritual emergency depends on the appropriate understanding, respect, encouragement and support which allow it to reach full completion.