Five Windows into States of Consciousness - Term Paper Example

?Five Windows into s of Consciousness This paper will address the topic, s of Consciousness. It is a broad topic, with fascinating branchesof inquiry, so five articles cannot do justice. However, the five articles I have selected offer windows of insight, and can further interest in this fascinating area. They represent research and theory from the perspectives of ethnic psychiatry, developmental psychology, psychobiology, psychotherapy, and transpersonal psychology. The ethnic psychiatry article is entitled, Black Intrapsychic Survival Skills: Alteration of States of Consciousness (Bell, 1982). Dr. Bell’s thesis is that, contrary to the usual psychiatric emphasis on states of consciousness and psychopathology, the ability to change one’s state of consciousness is useful as a survival skill, when faced with severe stress. Black culture is no stranger to stress and suffering, and in fact has developed sophisticated techniques to manage intrapsychic survival and to avoid survival fatigue. Bell argues that inner-city Blacks, in particular, deal with chronic trauma (family separation, rejection, illness and death of parents, severe illness and injuries throughout life, school and residence shifting, unemployment, divorce, pregnancy complications, war and disaster). Goals are frustrated and integrity threatened by loss (Bell, 1982, p. 1018). Surviving this kind of life is exhausting and the continuous onslaught of stressful events challenges a person’s ability to focus on the problem, analyze the situation, plan creative solutions, and remember their competency at doing so and their hope that this too can be survived. In responding to a stressful event, an individual needs to change or escape from the stressful environment, develop new skills for action, protect against overwhelming emotions with defense mechanisms, and recover from the event and its outcomes. Altering one’s states of consciousness furthers all four of these requirements (Bell, 1982, p. 1018), and is therefore a critical skill to develop. Traditional Black culture’s approach to healing involves altering consciousness to handle natural and supernatural persecution, central to cultural cosmology. It also involves divination and possession techniques to insure natural harmony with the universe. Black Christian culture uses prayer and testimony and being filled by the Holy Spirit in a similar way, expanding consciousness. Blacks use dancing and music and singing to alter consciousness, as well as physical exertion, masks, drugs, and fasting. Altering consciousness is a tool for survival, establishing harmony, protection, creative solutions, and change. The article on psychotherapy is entitled, Dyadically Expanded States of Consciousness and the Process of Therapeutic Change. Tronick (1998) discusses the importance of emotional connection and inter-subjectivity, from infancy, and application to the therapeutic relationship. Without emotional connectedness, the mental health of the infant is severely damaged. Tonick (1998) introduces an hypothesis, to explain this, the Dyadic Expansion of Consciousness, Hypothesis, based on his Mutual Regulation Model (MRM) of infant-adult regulation. The MRM is a micro-regulatory social-emotional process of communication that generates dyadic states of consciousness. This infant-adult process is applicable to the client-therapist relationship, as well, and if the dyadic states of consciousness is generated successfully, therapeutic change will likely be forthcoming. Interpreting therapeutic material is not enough. The infant must regulate to maintain balance, physically and emotionally. The adult is part of the infant’s regulatory system, as critical a part as any internal part. Maintaining homestatic balance is a dyadic collaborative process (Tronick, 1998, p. 293). For example, to regulate body temperature, the infant can kick off a blanket, change positions, become more or less active, or can use crying and other dyadic communication to be picked up and held comfortably by an adult. This same kind of system applies also to the infant’s emotional regulatory system. The dyadic communication involves facial expressions, vocalization, movement and touch. This interaction between infant and adult caregiver can expand the consciousness of both very powerfully, with experiential and developmental outcomes. This dyadic collaboration leads both infant and mother to increasingly coherent, organized states. The new states are more than what exists within the mother or the infant as separate self-organizing systems, and can only develop through the dyad (p. 296). Breaking the dyadic system through failure to communicate, or through separation, causes a dramatic effect in that one has the immediate sense of becoming less coherently organized (p. 297). This damages the infant. Repeated failures in this dyadic system result in pathology. Just as the dyadic system brings an expanded state of mental organization/consciousness, the same dynamic between a therapist and a client can also bring about an expanded state of mental organization and consciousness, and developmental change. Because regulation between client and therapist is mutual, change is mutual. The patient-therapist dyadic state of consciousness is extended to the client’s state of consciousness in other relationships (p. 298). A third article selected for consideration in this paper is one entitled, Psychobiology of Altered States of Consciousness (Vaitl, et al., Jan 2005). The researchers discuss altered states of consciousness in several categories. The first is those which occur spontaneously. This might include a mystical experience or an out-of-body experience. Another category is those states of consciousness that are evoked by physical and physiological stimulation. Examples would be a runner’s high, a drug experience, orgasm. A third category is states of consciousness induced by psychological means. This would include hypnosis, rage, meditation, for example. The fourth category is altered states caused by diseases. This includes such things as fever delirium, rabies-induced delusions, coma, narcoleptic episodes, Alzheimer’s dementia. Altered states of consciousness can be described in four dimensions: activation, awareness span, self-awareness, and sensory dynamics (p. 103). A person who is in a dreaming state has an inactive body, an awareness focused on dream content with only a very minimal awareness of immediate external factors (hearing thunder outside). The dreamer may have some awareness that they have a dry mouth and need water, and may recognize pain in their lower back. Some of this awareness may be incorporated as dream content, integrated into the storyline. With the neurophysiological approach, significantly altered states of consciousness are a result of compromised brain structure, temporary changes in brain dynamics, neurochemical and metabolic processes (p. 111). Environment, mental practices, and self-control techniques also alter brain functioning and conscious experience. Seasonal affect disorder can cause a state of depression. Hypnosis can regress an individual to childhood, and taking deep breaths can alter one’s state from anger to calm. Basically, though, it all has a neurophysiological explanation. The fourth article is entitled, Altered States of Consciousness and Short-Term Psychological After-Effects Induced by the First Time Ritual Use of Ayahuasca in an Urban Context in Brazil (Barbosa, Giglio, & Dalgalarrondo, 2005). In this research, 28 subjects from two religious groups in urban Brazil were evaluated, one to four days before and one to two weeks after their first ayahuasca experience. The preliminary evaluation assessed their attitudes toward the ritual experience and mental health status. In the post assessment, mental health status was again evaluated, with an interview about their ASC experience. Subjects indicated positive expectations about the ayahuasca experience, and the experience included visuals, numinousness, peace, insights, and a distressing reaction. The post-event evaluation of one religious group of 19 research subjects indicated a positive influence (relief) on psychiatric symptoms, after taking the hallucinogen. Subjects in both groups noted that their behavior had changed, to became more assertive, more serene, more vivacious and joyful (Barbosa, Giglio, & Dalgalarrondo, 2005) . The researchers explained these findings in terms of the ritual setting, heightened suggestibility, and the unique nature of ayahuasca. The fifth article is entitled, Altered States of Consciousness Therapy: A Missing Component in Alcohol and Drug Rehabilitation Treatment (McPeake, Kennedy, & Gordon, 1991). The basic idea is that humans are naturally motivated to alter consciousness, and that can be a good thing or a bad thing. It depends on whether one is finding it beneficial for development or a destructive experience that interferes with functioning and the pursuit of goals. Alcohol and drug rehabilitation programs ignore potential benefits of altered states. They position altered states as a destructive experience. They do this because of social disapproval of alcohol and drugs, and substance abuse and addiction. Also, the staff is not trained differently, and there is confusion about blaming the vehicle that induces the state for the destructive outcomes experienced by those who misuse substances (McPeake, Kennedy, & Gordon, 1991). The researchers point out that Alcoholics Anonymous, however, does take into account that altering consciousness is a basic human motivation. They address this by replacing self-destructive substance abuse habits with spiritual awakening (McPeake, Kennedy, & Gordon, 1991) . This accounts for the relative success of Alcoholics Anonymous, when other programs have higher rates of relapse. The researchers attribute relapse to having no alternative way to alter consciousness. To be restrained from basic human motivation is unnatural. Instruction in consciousness altering through alternative methods should be part of rehabilitation efforts. The researchers describe an (ASCT) Altered States of Consciousness Therapy program for instructing patients to gain new consciousness by intention manipulation of emotion and intellect. One thing I particularly admire about these research articles is that they are potentially useful in suggesting application or in furthering research. The article on ASC altering techniques used for Black cultural survival is interesting for what it is, an identification of Black culture. But it is also interesting for what it is not, an identification of the techniques used in other cultural contexts. Trauma is not limited to Black culture, but is faced by people in all cultures. It is intriguing to compare Black culture survival techniques with those of other cultures. I would love to see more research, in this vein, analyzing the cultural ASC techniques of Jews, women, children and adolescents, migrant farmworkers, Jamaicans, and other traumatized groups. Similarly, the article on dyadic collaboration and consciousness expansion was fascinating in its application of developmental theory to the therapeutic relationship, while not mentioning applicability to other relationship dynamics. I found myself thinking about how divorce leaves one or both parties with a sense of being less coherently organized, and how multiple divorces can accumulate that damage, leading to relationship pathology. I realized that marriage is a dyadic inter-subjective system also and that when the collaboration enables homeostatic regulation, there is satisfaction which, as with the infant, is threatened by miscommunication and separation. I suspect this theory of dyadic consciousness expansion could be fruitfully applied to other significant relationships as well. Another might be between teacher and student. The neurobiology article’s usefulness lies, I think, in its effort to state dimensions that can give shape to the experience and causes of states of consciousness. However, I found myself disappointed by its categories. There is little meaning and applicability potential in categories that easily over-lap. How does one classify, for example, a spontaneously-occurring NDE consciousness state alteration? It occurs spontaneously, can be argued to associate with physical and physiological changes that come with death, which surely is associated with psychological context and there may, in fact, be disease present in the equation. To decide what actually triggered the NDE is not only controversial but also without meaning. One scientist will argue that the light at the end of the tunnel is associated with a breakdown in the optic nerve, which in no way explains why the patient meets Jesus and their relatives there, or why they are told to return, or why consciousness is permanently altered after this. A doctor might dismiss the NDE as pathology associated with illness and injury, but again this does not explain meaning nor give a satisfactory distinction between causal categories. The importance of the Ayahuasca and rehabilitation articles lies in their honesty. It is politically correct to speak out against drugs and substance abuse. The government has long waged war on drugs. However, science should not be politically correct, but honest and open. The Ayahuasca article indicates the healing potential of a particular drug, taken ritually, within a particular context. This is useful information and might benefit psychiatric efforts to help people. The rehabilitation article raises a crucial point, in our war against substance abuse and drug trafficking: that it is natural human motivation to alter consciousness. Until we address that motivation, rehabilitation efforts will continue to involve a lot of relapse. This article offers a model program for use in rehabilitation. This paper aimed to open five windows into the fascinating area of altered states of consciousness. A strength is the diversity of approaches to the topic. A weakness is the miniscule view afforded into such a vast topic. Analysis of the selected articles reveals richness beyond their particular application and suggests the importance of further research. Works Cited Barbosa, P. C., Giglio, J. S., & Dalgalarrondo, P. (2005). Altered states of consciousness and short-term psychological after-effects induced by the first tme ritual use of ayahuasca in an urban context in Brazil. Journal of Psychoactive Drugs, 37(2), 193-201. Bell, C. C. (1998). Skills: Alteration of states of consciousness. Journal of the National Medical Association, 74(10), 290-299. McPeake, J. D., Kennedy, B. P., & Gordon, S. M. (1991). Altered states of consciousness therapy" A missing component in alcohol and drug rehabilitation treatment. Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment, 8(1-2), 75-82. Tronick, E. Z. (1998). Dyadically expanded states of consciousness and the process of therapeutic change. Infant Mental Health Journal, 19(3), 290-299. Vaitl, D., Birbaumer, N., Gruzelier, J., Jamieson, G. A., Kotchoubey, B., Kubler, A., . . . Weiss, T. (Jan 2005). Psychobiology of altered states of consciousness. Psychological Bulletin, 131(1), 98-127. Read More