Transpersonal psychology in Heart-Centered therapies

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

   We should keep in mind that Jung's conception of the objective
   psyche is equivalent to
   Castaneda's non-ordinary reality, even if Jung endows it with
   archetypal patterns. It is filled
   with numinal mystery, it is unfathomable, and it is the locus of
   near-death experiences, out-of-body
   journeys, and shamanic journeying. It is the locus of
   ancestral memory, of
   transpersonal guidance, and of numinous healing power
   (Smith, 1997, p. 136).

In the Jungian perspective, therapeutic healing begins with bringing pathological complexes into experienced (not just intellectual) consciousness. Not all complexes are pathological; only when complexes remain unconscious and operate autonomously do they create difficulties in daily life. Complexes become autonomous when they "dissociate" (split off), accumulating enough psychical energy and content to usurp the executive function of the ego and work against the overall good of the individual. "[Autonomous complexes] are usually the result of traumatic childhood experience" (Smith, 1997, p. 196). Only when dissociation is broken and the complex is brought to consciousness can the emotional charge be assimilated and the autonomous nature of the complex be dissolved.

The altered state allows access to these dissociated complexes, and the vehicle for reintegration. The trance state brings them into consciousness, and provides a natural way to integrate them, emotionally, physically and spiritually.

Either terminology, soul fragments or dissociated complexes, can be used to explain the therapeutic phenomena. A young man with a serious sexual addiction appeared to be very "empty" inside. He experienced deep feelings of loneliness and terror which he "medicated" with excessive and inappropriate sexual behavior. As we regressed him back to the source of his pain, he found himself at age six cowering under his bed after having been beaten by his father. The six-year-old ego state was able to retrieve a fragment of his soul from under that bed. A woman with cancer had been sexually abused by her grandfather and literally felt her soul shattered onto the walls of her childhood bedroom. As we collect the soul fragments and return them to the body, the individual begins to feel more whole and complete inside. A new sense of Self, of wholeness, is activated that has not been previously experienced.

The split-off, dissociated parts of the psyche take some of the ego's energy and become shadow aspects of the ego. "Reintegration is possible, and their retrieval is the goal of both Jungian psychoanalysis and of shamanic healing" (Smith, 1997, p. 196).

Shamanic Healing Approach

Shamanic states of consciousness

The shamanic state of consciousness (SSC) represents a discrete altered state of consciousness following Charles Tart's categorizations, and is a "dream-like state, somewhere between sleep and wakefulness" (Achterberg, 1985, p. 23). Risse (1972) describes the state as making the inner experience of sensory memories dominant over rationality. "He reviews his subconscious flow of pictures without the use of the critical powers activated by consciousness as well as the grid of causality, time, and space" (p. 22). This point of view is supported by cross cultural research by Peters and Price-Williams (1980) in which they studied shamanic practices in forty-two cultures and concluded that shamanic ecstasy is a specific type of altered state. They have suggested that many altered states share underlying physiological and psychological structures, although they may be different on the surface reflecting individual and cultural variation (Peters & Price-Williams, 1983). They linked the SSC with psychological rites of passage, catharsis, meditation, deep hypnosis, "waking dreams" and the experience of Kundalini energy ascending through the chakras.