Transpersonal psychology in Heart-Centered therapies

Journal of Heart Centered Therapies, Spring, 2003 by Diane Zimberoff, David Hartman

Polarities

"I think psychotherapy, in general, is 50% trust in expressiveness (trust in spontaneity, trust in letting go, trust in impulses) and 50% trust in awareness and self knowledge" (Naranjo). Energy and consciousness have always been the two complementary foundations of spiritual life and growth: feminine and masculine, ego surrender and ego strengthening, yin and yang, Shakti and Shiva. These universal forces feed on each other: awareness supports honest self-evaluation and self-expression, while a balanced organism supports awareness.

Modern cultures tend to regard the action mode as the proper one for adult life, and consider receptive states as pathological and regressive. In contrast, altered states such as sensory deprivation, hypnosis, meditation, lucid dreaming, psychedelic drug experiences, and shamanic states are more oriented to taking in the environment than to acting on it, and therefore feature the fluid boundaries and physical and psychical relaxation associated with the receptive mode. Other features of these states are heightened sensory vividness, timelessness, exultation, strong affect, animation of the inanimate, decrease in self-object distinction, loss of control over attention, dominance of paralogical thought patterns, increased parasympathetic stimulation, and a sense of expanded awareness. The general effect of undoing the automatic, habituated psychological structures that organize, limit, select, and interpret perceptual stimuli is called "deautomatization" (Gill & Brenman, 1959; Deikman, 1966). These states all incorporate variations on the sensory-perceptive experience of "being."

An interesting connection exists between the process of "deautomatization" and the high-voltage, slow-wave hippocampal-septal hypersynchrony (HSHH) found in mystical, ecstatic, and spiritual experiences. Neurophysiologically, the hippocampal-septal system evaluates the meaning of incoming stimuli, comparing them with previously stored information, and decides whether to pass the news on to conscious mental processing (active mode). Once the categorization is complete and the decision on importance is made, however, the hippocampal-septal system disengages from any active control of behavior (receptive mode) (Schachter, 1990).

The active and receptive modes of operating are not necessarily mutually exclusive. In the altered states discussed previously, we can experience both integrated to varying degrees. The characteristics of the experience of mixed modes depend on the extent of dominance of one or the other. One might experience gardening actively, "working" in the garden, or receptively, "playing" in the garden. Michael Washburn (1995) suggests that we are, in fact, forming and dissolving a whole sequence of "transition selves" on the way to realizing a pure state of receptivity, selflessness and surrender to ultimate unity (p. 44).

Another formulation, based on orientation rather than function, of the same dual structure is the psychoanalytic concept of primary and secondary process. Typical primary process mental organization includes condensation, displacement, symbolization and representation in visual or auditory imagery. It is primitive and akin to pre-verbal child mentation. Condensation is the representation of more than one element of unconscious material by a single detail, related to the process of overinclusiveness. Displacement is the substitution of an affective reaction from the actual cause to something else. Freud saw it as a neurotic mechanism, as in displacing anger at one's father onto something less threatening, e.g., an animal. It could as easily be recognizing, and reacting to, synchronous causes not correlated in the rational secondary process. Symbolizing in images is fundamental to any communication by and with the unconscious, e.g., in dreams or in hypnotic trance. Secondary process (later termed the reality principle by Freud) is conscious activity, guided by rationality and objective reality.