Beyond Diagnoses
Julie A. Crain B.H.Sc.
Outline
• My Journey
• DSM Confusion
• Consciousness
• Shamanism
• Egoic States
• Journey to Wholeness
• Developmental Model
of Consciousness
• Almaas
• The Pre/Trans Fallacy
• Mental Health
• Meditation
• References
My Journey…
• Childhood
• Addictions
• Mental Health
• Recovery
• The Implicated Researcher
Guiding Outlook…
“There is nothing that madness of men invents
which is not either nature made manifest or
nature restored.”
- Foucault
Form and Formless
• Form – physical reality, subject, self.
• Formless – energetic, spiritual reality, object of
experience.
• When “one realizes one’s own nature as allpervasive space, the subject (as nondual
consciousness) does not vanish. It becomes
one with the object of experience.” ( p. 29).
(Blackstone, 2006)
Consciousness
• What is consciousness?
“A ‘knowing’ or ‘witnessing’”
Bricklin (2003)
• What is unconsciousness?
Ken Wilber:
Consciousness
(Wilber, 2000)
Egoic States
• Pre-egoic (Levels 1-3)
• Egoic (Levels 4-6)
• Post(trans)-egoic (Levels 7-10)
(Wilber, 2000)
Levels 1-3
• Level 1 – Sensoriphysical – matter, sensation,
perception.
• Level 2 – Phantasmic-emotional – emotionalfeeling, emotional-sexual body, basic mental
picturing.
• Level 3 – Rep-mind – conceptual mind and
differentiation between the emotional-body.
(Wilber, 1986, 2000)
Levels 4-6
• Level 4 – Rule/role mind – creates rules and
roles to secure comfort within social structure.
• Level 5 – Formal-reflexive – true identity with
self is formed.
• Level 6 – Vision-logic – starts encountering
existential realities.
Levels 7-10
• Level 7 – Psychic – opening of the third eye.
• Level 8 – Subtle – illumination and rapture,
initial transcendental insight.
• Level 9 – Causal – fully emerged in finite
consciousness of unity.
• Level 10 – Nondual – ultimate level.
The Pre/Trans Fallacy
• The confusion between pre-egoic states of
consciousness and post-egoic states of consciousness.
• Pre-egoic states cannot be regressed back to. The
person is either stuck in that state and unable to
integrate and move beyond or they become de-egoic.
• De-egoic – a depersonalization of the individual, which
is much different from pre-egoic states.
• Know the difference between ego loss and
pathological experiences.
(Wilber, 1982)
Ronald Bassman
• Psychologist that was diagnosed with
Schizophrenia.
• Told there was no cure.
• “People diagnosed with schizophrenia in Third
World countries have higher rates of recovery
than those who live in First World nations. Why
is this?” (2001, p. 39).
• Nurture and protect the spirit.
Mental Health
• Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental
Disorders (DSM)
• Gabor Mate
• Phil Borges
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9yq8Z
0q-3XAjNKcRxOpAPA
DSM 5 confusion:
Need for Critique
• Oppressive and controlling
• Facts = Falsities
• Foucault (1988), says “On all sides, madness fascinates
man. The fantastic images it generates are not fleeting
appearances that quickly disappear from the surface of
things. By a strange paradox, what is born from the
strangest delirium was already hidden, like a secret, like an
inaccessible truth, in the bowels of the earth” (p. 23).
• Limits treatment.
• “No distinction between psychosis and mysticism” (Grof
and Grof, 1989, p. xi)
Examples…
•
Borderline Personality Disorder – “A pervasive pattern of instability of interpersonal
relationships, self-image, and affects, and marked impulsivity, beginning by early
adulthood and present in variety of contexts” (American Psychiatric Association, 2013,
p. 663).
Pre-egoic – world invades the self, as there is no differentiation between the two.
Post-egoic – has developed and integrated a secure differentiate self, then proceeds to let
that identity drop away.
•
Schizophrenia – Spectrum that includes 5 domains: delusions, hallucinations,
disorganized thinking (speech), grossly disorganized or abnormal motor behavior
(including catatonia), and negative symptoms.
Pre-egoic – regression, fragmentation of ego, betrayal of senses, loss of functioning, level 1.
Post-egoic – allow different layers of reality.
Transformational
Experiences
• Shifts and expansions in consciousness
• Upper level (7-10) experiences
• Criteria: Feeling of oneness
Expansive energy
Time ceases
Transcends all levels
Regressive Experiences
• Lower level (1-3) experiences
• Confusion regarding identity (not beyond identity)
• Criteria: Constriction/Contraction of self
Placing ownership on experience/
energy
Judgments (critical voice)
Identity confusion
Spiritual Emergencies
• Only two types: before spiritual awakening
and after spiritual awakening.
• No ability to integrate experience which leads
to repression, denial, dissociation and
disallowing the state.
• Defense Mechanisms.
Level 7 – Psychic
• Often seeing what others cannot.
• Psychic abilities – interconnected, beyond
personal and into universal.
• Shamanism – entering into an altered state of
consciousness in order to explore other
worlds. Aids in healing.
• Issues – ego ownership and inflation (Nixon,
2012).
Level 8 - Subtle
• When the mind quiets, there will be an
emergence of faint images and sensations.
• Chakras and reiki – energy systems in the
body.
• Issues – false awakenings, pursuit of more
spiritual experiences (Nixon, 2012).
Level 9 - Causal
• Only awareness remains.
• Eastern Spirituality – notion of emptiness.
• Issues – has yet to integrate form and
formless. Can attach to experience, creating
specialness.
Level 10 - Nondual
• Form and formless become fully integrated. All
levels exist within this space.
• Silence.
• When the self disappears, spirit fills the space.
• Change of occupancy.
• Issues – can become stuck between form and
formless.
Shamanism – View of
Mental Illness
• http://themindunleashed.org/2014/08/shaman-seesmental-hospital.html
• What does the shaman see?
- Birth of a healer
- “Two incompatible energies have merged into the
same field”
- Westerners are unequipped to integrate energies from
the spiritual world.
- Spirits were trying to get patients free of medications.
Journey to Wholeness
• Integration (form and formless)
• Allowing all experiences.
• No judgments.
• Authentic, risk taking.
• Vulnerability.
• Trust.
Almaas’s Approach
Simplified by Tzu (2014)
• Fakeness and the empty shell – seeking
mirroring.
- Start seeing the fakeness related to their
striving for mirroring.
- Empty shell, false self, cut off from essence
- Fakeness is around centralizing the self instead
of essence.
(Almaas, 2001)
• The narcissistic wound and rage – Start feeling
vulnerable and become aware of a wound.
• Wound points to the frailty of the selfstructure.
• Can lead to an existential crisis.
• Rage arises from feeling of being betrayed by
existence.
(Almaas, 2001)
• The great betrayal – the betrayal is not done
to us by the other, but done to us by our self.
• Rejected own essence to gain mirroring.
• Done as a need for survival.
(Almaas, 2001)
• Ego activity – the ego starts creating activity
to bring the being back into the self structure
and our of the awareness of essence.
• Ego activity increased due to fear of no self.
• Letting go of judgments will help break
through the fear and quiet the ego activity.
(Almaas, 2001)
• The fall into the black chasm of being – a
space where the sense of identity is no longer
in relation to the self.
• Allow with no judgment, no rejection, no
reaction, no opinion.
• Acceptance allows for the realization of our
essential identity.
(Almaas, 2001)
• Realization of essential identity – central
identity begins to shift.
• Identity is with essence, not self.
• No longer need mirroring, becomes the mirror.
• Resting place.
(Almaas, 2001)
Spirituality incorporated into
Mental Health Treatment
• Holistic and integrative.
• Doesn’t try and fix, promotes surrender to
reality as it presents its self.
• The basic contact.
• Facilitates the Journey to Wholeness; heals the
root of The Split.
Meditation
• Let go of the mind.
• No judgments.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1Y-QGUk9wY
References
•
Almaas (2001). The point of existence: Transformations of narcissism in self-Realization.
Boston: Shambhala.
•
American Psychiatric Association. (2013). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental
disorders (5th ed.). Washington, DC: Author.
•
Birnbaum, L. B. A., & Mayseless, O. (2008). The role of spirituality in mental health
interventions: A developmental perspective. International Journal of
Transpersonal Studies. Israel: Haifa University.
Blackstone, J. (2006). Intersubjectivity and nonduality in the psychotherapeutic relationship.
Journal of Transpersonal Psychology, 38(1), 25-40.
•
Bricklin, J. (2003). Sciousness and con-sciousness: William james and the prime reality of
non-dual experience. The Journal of Transpersonal Psychology, 35(2), 85-110.
•
Grof, S., & Grof, C. (1989). Spiritual emergency: When personal transformation becomes a
crisis. Jeremy P. Tarcher.
References
• Nixon, G. (2012). Transforming the addicted person’s counterfeit quest
for wholeness through three stage of recovery: A Wilber
transpersonal spectrum of development clinical perspective.
International Journal of Mental Health & Addiction, 10(3), 407-427.
• Tzu. G. (2014). Awakening in the paradox of darkness. Victoria, BC: Friesen
Press.
• Wilber, K. (1982). The pre/trans fallacy. Journal of
Humanistic Psychology, 22(2), 5-43.
• Wilber, K., Engler, J., & Brown, D. (1986). Transformations of
consciousness: Conventional and contemplative perspectives
on development. Boston: Shambhala.
• Wilber, K. (2000). Integral psychology. Boston: Shambhala.