isabel clarke consultant clinical psychologist
TRANSCRIPT
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Isabel ClarkeConsultant Clinical Psychologist
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Looking at psychosis and spirituality in the same frame, as one potential of human experience.
Research that supports this perspective. A model of brain architecture to underpin
this perspective. Implications of looking at human beings
in this way. Implications for clinical practice will be
the subject of my second talk.
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Mental breakdown: what is going on? How can people be better supported
through it? Where does spirituality fit within
psychological science? Psychotic experiences: what is going on
here? Euphoria followed by catastrophe ????
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Early breakdown Overwhelming sense of connection – spiritual
literature Followed by fear
Revolution and social movements Euphoric, everything possible stage Followed by terror, brutal dictatorship and
repression Stepping out of individuality – a sought
after experience
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Mike Jackson’s research on the overlap between psychotic and spiritual experience.
Emmanuelle Peter’s research on New Religious Movements.
Schizotypy – a dimension of experience: Gordon Claridge. High Schizotypy = positives as well as negatives
Wider sources of evidence – e.g.Cross-cultural perspectives; anthropology. Richard Warner: Recovery from Schizophrenia.
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Caroline Brett’s AANEX makes it possible to measure anomalous experiences phenomenologically – get away from symptom language
Research that demonstrates: having a context for anomalous experiences makes the difference between whether they result in diagnosable mental
health difficulties whether the anomalies/symptoms are short
lived or persist. Caroline Brett, Heriot-Maitland and others.
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An area where experience becomes anomalous – spiritual/psychotic/ THE TRANSLIMINAL
This challenges the idea of psychosis as ‘just’ an illness and symptoms as things to be got rid of at all costs.
Powerful evidence: how the experience is made sense of impacts peoples’ lives
Health services do not come well out of this Time for a new perspective!
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Traditions such as Psychosynthesis and Spiritual Emergence/Emergency recognize the transformational potential of the transliminal.
Jung: Meeting and integrating shadow - an aspect of transformation
These traditions tend to distinguish between ‘psychosis’ and transformational crises
More and more this is seen as a false dichotomy – Spiritual Crisis Network (.uk)
Mike Jackson’s Problem Solving Model, encompassing potential and dangers.
Role of stigma in trapping people.
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The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.Don’t go back to sleep.
You must ask for what you really want.Don’t go back to sleep.
People are going back and forth across the doorsillWhere the two worlds touch.
The door is round and open.Don’t go back to sleep.
Rumi, translated by John Moyne & Coleman Barks in ‘Open Secret’ (Threshold books).
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Being human is difficult because our brains have 2 main circuits – they work together most of the time, but not always.
There is one direct, sensory driven type of processing and a more elaborate and conceptual one.
The same distinction can be found in the memory. Direct processing is emotional and characterised by
high arousal. The other one filters our view to make it more
manageable The direct processing system is the default system
– the one that dominates if the other gets disconnected – in which case we lose that filter – and land up ACROSS THE THRESHOLD –THE TRANSLIMINAL
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The split between realities comes from the split in us!
Interacting Cognitive Subsystems provides a way of making sense of this ‘crack’.(Teasdale & Barnard 1993). An information processing model of cognition Developed through extensive research into memory
and limitations on processing. A way into understanding the “Head/Heart split in
people.
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REASONABLEMIND
EMOTIONMIND
IN THE PRESENTIN CONTROL
WISE
MIND
Reasonable Mind Memory
Emotion Mind Memory
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BodyState
subsystem
Auditory
ss.
Visualss.
Interacting Cognitive Subsystems.
Implicational subsystem
ImplicationalMemory
Propositional subsystem
PropositionalMemory
Verbal
ss.
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Our subjective experience is the result of two overall meaning making systems interacting – neither is in control.
Each has a different character, corresponding to “head” and “heart”.
The IMPLICATIONAL Subsystem manages emotion – and therefore relationship.
The verbal, logical, PROPOSITIONAL ss. gives us our sense of individual self.
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Good everyday functioning = good
communication between the main organizing systems
At high and at low arousal, the implicational ss becomes dominant
This gives us a different quality of experience – the transliminal
More often, the two are working together, adding something to ordinary experience – e.g. where we get that sense of the sacred, the supernatural.
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The human being is a balancing act as the two organising systems pass control back and forth: there is no boss.
The mind is simultaneously individual, and reaches beyond the individual, when the implicational ss. is dominant.
This constant switch between logic and emotion gives us human fallibility
The self sufficient, billiard ball, mind is an illusion
In our implicational/relational mode we are a part of the whole – and the nature of our experience changes.
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Mental health breakdown is a common human experience
Comes from a combination of Individual vulnerability/sensitivity Life circumstances – losses, trauma etc. Times of transition Leading to unmanageable feelings
Important relationships are vital to hold us together – including the one with ourselves.
These can suffer in breakdown – or breakdown can occur because they have suffered
Therapy is about healing that crucial relationship between you and you!
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Self asexperienced
in relationshipwith primary
caregiver
Sense ofvalue comes
from rel. withthe spiritual
primarycare-giver
In Rel. with wider
group etc.
In Rel. withearth:
non humansetc.
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As people, we make sense only within our context of relationship –we are held in a web of relationship
Important others; our family; our social group; ethnic group etc.
Spirituality is about relationship with that which is beyond; with the whole – the widest circle of the web
At times of change, transition - and breakdown - that wider context becomes important
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Emotional knowledge tells us about relationship – not reasoning – we can feel more than we can precisely know
Relationship operates across the boundaries of the self and across time – bereavement encounters.
Beyond certainty!
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In a small way, in ‘spiritual’ etc. moments. Seriously across the threshold:Times of transitionTrauma loosens the boundary, softens the wallsIllness and lossPhysical privation – lack of food, sleep, isolationMind altering substancesAll apply equally to spiritual practice, the saints, and vulnerability to psychosis!
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Ordinary Clear limits Access to full
memory and learning Precise meanings
available Separation between
people Clear sense of self Emotions moderated
and grounded A logic of ‘Either/Or
Numinous Boundaries dissolve Access to
propositional knowledge/memory is patchy
Suffused with meaning or meaningless
Self: lost in the whole or supremely important
Emotions: swing between extremes or absent
A logic of ‘Both/And’
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Times of transition and loss ‘wake up’ earlier trauma
People find ways to cope when things are unbearable – for some that coping is to cross the threshold – into another dimension.
This is easier for some people than for others – the ‘schizotypy’ spectrum - openness to anomalous experience – on a continuum with normality
People high on the schizotypy spectrum are more sensitive and “open”.
Leading to the need to regulate stimulation. This can lead into an avoidance cycle; social
isolation and withdrawal = the other ‘reality’ takes over – helped by stigma.
Positive side as well as vulnerability
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Loss of boundaries = openness both to other parts within the self and perhaps to other minds
Loss of time dimension – pre-cognition Interchangeability of psychic contents –
past lives, telepathy etc. Voices. Possession – invasion from within
or without ? Distinctions lose their meaning
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Richard Bentall, Mary Boyle and others: questioning the validity of the construct of Schizophrenia
Questioning of the biological illness idea – evidence for the role of trauma and past adversity
Read, Mosher etc. Stigma and an illness conceptualization
Whittaker and others: overselling of medication
Joanna Moncrieff: misselling of medication
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[email protected] [email protected]
Clarke, I. (Ed.) (2010) Psychosis and Spirituality: consolidating the new paradigm. Chichester: Wiley
Clarke, I. ( 2008) Madness, Mystery and the Survival of God. Winchester:'O'Books.
Clarke, I. & Wilson, H.Eds. (2008) Cognitive Behaviour Therapy for Acute Inpatient Mental Health Units; working with clients, staff and the milieu. London: Routledge.
www.isabelclarke.org www.SpiritualCrisisNetwork.uk