Successful Schizophrenia

SUCCESSFUL SCHIZOPHRENIA:So-called ‘Schizophrenia’ as a Process of Uncontrolled piritual Emergence or ‘Spiritual Emergency’ The successful outcome of spiritual emergency depends on the appropriate understanding, respect, encouragement and support which allow it to reach full completion (‘successful schizophrenia’). Insights into the workings of human nature are revealed by combining Western scientific research with concepts provided by Eastern psychologies. Buddhism is concerned with the dimension of human nature beyond the persona or ‘ego', namely the transpersonal or ‘spiritual’ dimension which is defined in terms of appreciation for the divinity of humanness and understanding of the ultimate connectedness or ‘unity’ of all things. The spiritual nature of human nature is characterised in terms of the universal moral values or ‘human values’. Human values are the social values required for survival of the species as a social species… ‘beauty’ as truth, ‘truth’as knowledge, 'knowledge' as understanding, ‘understanding’ as love, ‘love’ as unconditional caring, lovingkindness or compassion, ‘justice’ as morality, ‘morality’ as freedom of conscience or peace, ‘peace’as social responsibility, ‘wisdom’ as intelligence, ‘intelligence’ as intelligence of creativity and productivity or ‘creative intelligence’. Awareness of human values ‘spiritual awareness’ results in spiritual insight of 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'. It is the human values of social intelligence which define the human personality or ‘human nature’. Much needless suffering results from ignorance of the multidimensional nature of the human psyche or 'human nature'. Human nature is a 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’. Rational conscience is a product of moral or 'spiritual’ development which involves the preservation of the integrated functioning of the personality and transformation of the self i.e. 'enlightenment' also known variously as 'individuation', 'self-realisation', 'self-actualisation', 'spiritual renewal', 'spiritual awakening', 'spiritual rebirth’or 'spiritual emergence'. Spiritual emergence is prerequisite to creative intelligence required for effective adaptability. "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. The transpersonal perspective allows for the attainment of knowledge of one's true nature as the source of motivation for personal productiveness and creativity or ‘work’ (personal power)... ‘self-knowledge’… 'self-empowerment’. Transcendance of the 'ego (‘ego-transcendance’) allows for an inner sense of emotional liberation which results from expansion of consciousness and heightened awareness. Intuition is purified and sharpened to allow for a clearer more accurate perception of reality and the discovery of ideas and behaviours which are more effective for social adaptability. Each person is at a

different stage of spiritual emergence depending on the level of their moral or spiritual development. Complete spiritual development takes place over a period of years and depends on conditions of freedom in education… 'free education' or 'holistic education'. Holistic education revolves around the biologically based motives for human behaviour … the ‘human needs’. Human needs include both 'lower' psychological needs for security and self-esteem - the 'ego needs' - and 'higher' psychological needs for moral development… instinctive yearnings for human values.... the spiritual needs or ‘metaneeds’. Motivation by the metaneeds or 'metamotivation' allows for the discovery of one’s true potential. If in highly sensitive individuals the processs of spiritual emergence is blocked for any reason then they might be warned that their growth is in grave danger and that they rapidly need to make adjustments which are for essential for effective adaptation. The transformation process of spiritual emergence can be so dramatic as to become uncontrollable and reach a point of crisis or emergency. Socalled ‘spiritual emergency’ is known by many names such as 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 a process of healing and renewal and 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. Spiritual emergency has the potential for bringing about the person's positive transformation and is therefore the concern of psychology of the beyond persona or 'ego' dimension of the human psyche i.e. ‘transpersonal psychology’. In the conceptual framework of transpersonal psychology schizophrenia is a brilliant condition which can be understood as a self-healing process involving dissolution and removal of illusions and false beliefs which originate in the programming of social conditioning. Schizophrenia is a personal 'story' which involves a natural and temporary self-organising transformative process or crisis of transformation or psychospiritual crisis now known as 'spiritual emergency' - the term coined by psychiatrist Stanislav Grof. Spiritual emergency is a self-healing process involving dissolution and removal of illusions and false beliefs which originate in the programming of social conditioning which leads to the formulation of aberrant thought complexes. These prevent the person from making accurate evaluations of their social environment... incorrect evaluation leads to inappropriate decision-making and ineffective social adaptation... non-adaptive social behaviour. The experiences can be frightening and confusing because they appear to be out of context with everyday reality. As a result they are often misunderstood and discredited as being pathological and hence the medical model. Passage from one into the next is revealed by the person’s apparently bizarre speech and behaviour. These are mistakenly believed to represent ‘symptoms’ of disease or ‘mental illness.' The psychiatric profession has created one of the greatest myths by describing so-called 'schizophrenia' as a nonspecific disease or ‘mental illness’. It was German psychiatrist Emil Kraepelin (1856-1926) who originally coined the Latin name 'dementia praecox' meaning 'prematurely out of one's mind'. He believed that this supposedly devastating condition involved irreversible mental deterioration. It later became clear that the term was a misnomer. In 1910 a new term was coined 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… the model of ‘unwanted conduct’. In fact so-called ‘schizophrenia’ is not a disease nor is it a hopeless condition but a natural process which is a concern for psychology of the transpersonal or spiritual dimension of human nature i.e. 'transpersonal psychology'. In this context, so-called ‘schizophrenia’ can be viewed as a part of the human condition. The apparent 'symptoms' are not problems to be combatted but they are manifestations of a spontaneous healing effort by the organism as a whole. 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 result having to deal with the emotional implications. The person undergoes a series of varying stages or ‘episodes’. The apparently bizarre speech and behaviour patterns reveal the passage from lower to higher consciousness states. The person eventually learns to grow beyond fear based ego-consciousness, 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.