Dissertation Proposal, PCC November 2008
A Jungian Framework for Understanding Psychedelic-Induced Psychotic States
A Dissertation Proposal
Scott Hill, Ph.D. Candidate 703 Tupper St. Santa Rosa, CA 95404 [email protected] 707-544-2428
Committee Members: Sean Kelly, Ph.D., Committee Chair Richard Tarnas, Ph.D., Committee Member David Lukoff, Ph.D., External Committee Member
Philosophy, Cosmology, and Consciousness Philosophy and Religion California Institute of Integral Studies San Francisco
Scott Hill Dissertation Proposal
Abstract Given the notable references to Jungian psychology in the psychedelic literature, on the one hand, and the lack of in-depth treatments of psychedelic experience from a Jungian perspective, on the other, there is a clear need to develop a Jungian framework for elucidating the nature of psychedelic experience. The framework I envision would highlight the nature of short-term psychotic reactions to psychedelic experience. This framework would also indicate implications for psychedelic psychotherapy as well as the treatment of short-term psychotic reactions to psychedelic experiences. The paucity of in-depth theoretical treatments of the relationship between Jungian psychology and psychedelics can be attributed to a variety of reasons, most notably Jung’s own criticism of the use of psychedelics. Although the problems Jung identifies should be taken seriously, I see the value of looking beyond Jung’s dismissive critique to his psychology in order to take advantage of its penetrating insights into the nature of psychedelic experience. The relationship of Jung’s psychology to psychedelic experience and psychedelic psychotherapy therefore are subjects ripe for scholarly investigation and theoretical development. This dissertation is based on an in-depth examination of Jung’s theoretical and clinical approach to the structure and dynamics of the psyche in general and to trauma, psychosis, psychotherapy, and integration in particular. This dissertation could make a significant contribution to transpersonal psychology and Jungian psychology by employing a Jungian interpretation, or Jungian hermeneutics, of psychedelic experience. This study could also improve the practice of psychedelic psychotherapy and the treatment of psychedelic-induced disorders.
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Table of Contents
Abstract ...... i Table of Contents ...... ii Historical Background ...... 1 Early References to Jung’s Psychology in the Psychedelic Literature . . 1 Contemporary References to Jung’s Psychology in the Psychedelic Literature ...... 2 Papers Relating Jungian Psychology to Psychedelic Experience . . . . . 3 The Need for a Jungian Framework For Understanding Psychedelic Experience ...... 5 Research Objectives, Scope and Limitations ...... 7 Research Objectives ...... 7 Scope and Limitations ...... 8 The Range of Psychedelic Experiences and Substances Treated ...... 8 The Psychological Nature of Psychedelic Experience ...... 8 The Tentative Nature of My Jungian Framework ...... 8 The Hypothetical Nature of the Proposed Jungian Guidelines . . 9 The Limited Scope of the Proposed Jungian Guidelines . . . . . 9 My Approach to Trauma ...... 9 The Scope of Jung’s Work Treated ...... 9 Literature Review ...... 10 Psychedelics and Trauma ...... 10 Psychedelically-Induced Trauma ...... 10 Psychedelic Psychotherapy as Treatment for Trauma ...... 11 Traumatic Psychedelic Experiences and Childhood Trauma: A Jungian Link ...... 11 Psychedelics and Psychosis ...... 12 Psychedelics as Psychosis-Inducing Substances ...... 12 Psychedelic-Induced Psychotic States and Schizophrenia Compared ...... 12 Criticism of the Psychotomimetic Model ...... 13 The Psychotomimetic Model Reconsidered ...... 14 Psychedelics, Psychosis, and Trauma: The Transformative Potential . . 15 The Transformative Potential of Psychedelics ...... 16 The Transformative Potential of Psychotic States ...... 18 Psychedelics, Psychosis, and Transformation ...... 19 Jung’s Approach to the Therapeutic Process of Integration . . . 21 The Therapeutic Value of Abreaction: Jung’s and Grof’s Views Compared ...... 22
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Literature Review (cont.) Psychedelics, Psychosis, and Trauma: The Transformative Potential (cont.)
Psychedelic Psychotherapy ...... 23 The Psycholytic and Psychedelic Models ...... 23 Therapeutic Frameworks ...... 24 Rationale and Plan for Completing the Literature Review ...... 27
Significance ...... 29
Theoretical Perspective and Methodology ...... 31 Hermeneutics and Hermeneutical Attitude ...... 31 Jungian Hermeneutics ...... 32 Understanding and Explanation ...... 33 Three Basic Elements of This Investigation ...... 35
Chapter Breakdown and Timeline ...... 36 Tentative Outline ...... 36 Discussion ...... 38 Tentative Timeline ...... 39
Research Bibliography ...... 40 Primary Sources ...... 40 Secondary Jungian Sources ...... 40
References ...... 42
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Historical Background
Early References to Jung’s Psychology in the Psychedelic Literature
The fact that Jung’s psychology has long been appreciated for the insights it provides into the nature of psychedelic experience is well illustrated by the tribute Leary, Metzner, and Alpert paid to Jung in their seminal manual, The Psychedelic Experience (1995, pp. 19-25), which was first published in 1964 and was based on The Tibetan Book of the Dead, to which Jung had written an appreciative commentary (1935/1953). Leary et al. characterize Jung as a psychiatrist cum mystic who had credited The Tibetan Book of the Dead for stimulating many of his own ideas, insights, and discoveries (1995, pp. 20-21, 23). In their eyes, by the later part of his life, Jung had committed himself wholly “to the inner vision and to the wisdom and superior reality of internal perceptions” (ibid. p. 23). We can see why they would say this when we consider the following observations that Jung made in his Psychological Commentary to The Tibetan Book of the Great Liberation (1939/1954). The conscious mind, in Jung’s view, naturally resists the emergence of what it experiences as, in his words, “the intrusion of apparently incompatible and extraneous tendencies, thoughts, feelings” (par. 779). The most startling instances of such unacceptable intrusions, Jung notes, are found in schizophrenic patients (ibid.). But in cases such as those illuminated in The Tibetan Book of the Great Liberation, Jung adds, “it is tacitly agreed that the apparently incompatible contents shall not be suppressed again, and that the conflict shall be accepted and suffered. At first no solution appears possible, and this fact, too, has to be borne with patience” (par. 780). The relevance of such observations by Jung to my thesis can be summarized as follows: Jung’s conception of the ego’s terrifying but potentially transformative confrontation with unacceptable elements of the unconscious provides a uniquely valuable theoretical framework for understanding and defining the therapeutic benefits of what initially appear to be only psychedelic-induced eruptions of irrational and even psychosis-inducing content from the unconscious. The conscious, rational mind naturally resists such content as overwhelmingly alien. Through proper therapeutic integration, however, such content can become deeply meaningful and psychologically beneficial to the individual.
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Contemporary References to Jung’s Psychology in the Psychedelic Literature
Notable contemporary theorists, who are also former practitioners of psychedelic psychotherapy, continue to draw upon Jung’s insights. In her treatment of psychedelic- assisted therapy, “The New Psychotherapy: MDMA and the Shadow” (2001), Ann Shulgin discusses ways to work with the difficult process of facing the shadow, Jung’s term for the personality’s dark side. Besides Stanislav Grof’s work, Shulgin recommends the writings of Jung and Jungian psychiatrist John Weir Perry to people struggling to integrate challenging psychedelic experiences (Shulgin & Shulgin, 1997, p. 161). Resisting such difficult experiences, says former psychedelic therapist Myron Stolaroff, intensifies their painfulness and leads to “disturbing, unsatisfactory experiences, or even psychotic attempts to escape” (2002, p. 97). Like Shulgin, Stolaroff draws upon Jungian concepts of the shadow and integration in his guidelines for working through psychic defenses that arise when someone stumbles into a difficult psychedelic experience (ibid., pp. 94-103; Stolaroff, 1994). Shulgin’s and Stolaroff’s treatments of encountering and integrating problematic unconscious material in psychedelic psychotherapy provide invaluable perspectives on working through difficult psychedelic experiences. However, their mention of Jungian concepts lacks any direct reference to Jungian sources, let alone thorough theoretical articulation. Shulgin and Stolaroff were both influenced by underground psychedelic therapist Leo Zeff, who was a Jungian analyst. The only record Zeff seems to have left of his psychedelic psychotherapy practice, however, is a published interview Stolaroff conducted with him (Stolaroff, 2004), which unfortunately contains no explicit discussion of the relationship between Zeff’s Jungian foundation and his practice of psychedelic psychotherapy.1 Among contemporary theorists of psychedelic psychotherapy who draw on Jung’s psychology, only Ralph Metzner and Stanislav Grof discuss at any length the correspondence between their own work and Jung’s psychology. And even though both Metzner and Grof generously draw on Jung’s theories and clinical experience to support
1 I use the generic term psychedelic psychotherapy to refer to any use of psychedelic substances with psychotherapy. There are different types of psychedelic psychotherapy, however, and I discuss them in “Psychedelic Psychotherapy,” below (p.20).
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their own extensive theoretical frameworks (Grof, 1985, 1994; Grof & Grof, 1989; Metzner, 1998b), neither provides an in-depth presentation of Jung’s psychology vis-à-vis psychedelic experience. Despite numerous departures from Jung’s theories (Grof, 1985, pp. 191-192), Grof’s own comprehensive framework for psychedelic psychotherapy shares a far- reaching correspondence with Jung’s theories (ibid., p. 191). One common theme, which is central to my thesis, is the ego’s problematic and yet ultimately transformative relationship with the collective, or archetypal, unconscious. In Spiritual Emergency: When Personal Transformation Becomes a Crisis, Stanislav and Christina Grof state that Jung’s revolutionary concept of the collective unconscious and his respect for the spiritual dimensions of psychological development provide an essential theoretical foundation for the transpersonal view of the psychotic characteristics of spiritual emergency represented in their anthology (1989, pp. 5, 237; see also Grof, 1985, p. 174). Grof’s spectrum approach to explaining the nature of various realms or levels of nonordinary experience draws from several major psychological orientations, including the work of Freud, Rank, and Reich. Grof finds in Jung’s psychology, however, the deepest correspondence to the domains of psychic experience he has mapped in his own cartography of the psyche (Grof, 1985, pp. 190-192). “Although even [Jung’s] analytical psychology does not cover adequately the entire spectrum of psychedelic phenomena,” Grof says, “it requires the least revisions or modifications of all the systems of depth psychotherapy” (ibid, p. 190). Grof draws most heavily on Jung’s concept of the collective unconscious to describe what Grof refers to as the transpersonal, or Jungian, level of consciousness manifested in the complex process described in his own theoretical framework (1994, pp. 296-297; 1985, pp. 131, 140-141).
Papers Relating Jungian Psychology to Psychedelic Experience
A number of notable papers relating Jung’s psychology to psychedelic experience have been published. Sandison (1954), Cutner (1959), and Fordham (1963) discuss from a Jungian standpoint clinical studies of psychedelic psychotherapy conducted in the 1950s. Sandison and Cutner speak of the therapeutic value of LSD-assisted
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psychotherapy,2 which each of them conducted as psychotherapists. Reviewing case studies of LSD-assisted psychotherapy, Fordham cautions that the relatively passive process of psychedelic psychotherapy must be distinguished from the active process of Jungian analysis, that the lasting therapeutic value of the LSD experience is slight, and that the strongest therapeutic agent in the cases he reviewed was the transference (p. 129). I will of course discuss these rare and important Jungian papers in my dissertation’s full literature review. While confirming my thesis regarding the relevance of Jungian psychology to understanding psychedelic experience, these papers fall far short of establishing a Jungian framework for such a purpose. More recently, four doctoral candidates have written dissertations that analyze various aspects of psychedelic experience from a Jungian perspective. Gurnick (1990) analyzes variations in individuals’ subjective psychedelic experience in terms of Jung’s psychological types in order to advance understanding of the relationship between subjective psychedelic experience and the individual user’s personality makeup. Albert (1993) draws from Jung’s concepts of the archetypal unconscious, constellation, and synchronicity to support specific aspects of his broad metaphysical theory of consciousness. Albert argues that Jung’s psychology can account for the role that psychic dynamics play in psychedelic-induced experiences of spiritual, non-spatiotemporal realities. Heuser (2006) analyzes reports of “entity visitations” (p. 4) by ayahuasca users and relates his analysis to Jung’s psychology as well as Grof’s transpersonal model. He proposes that Jung’s archetypal perspective provides useful metaphorical amplification of the symbolic content reflected in these ayahuasca reports (p. 38) and that such symbolic content may reflect stages in the individuation process (pp. 77-78). To support this interpretation, Heuser briefly reviews the Jungian concepts of ego and Self, archetypes, complexes, the unity of opposites, integration, abaissement du niveau mental, participation mystique, the shadow, psychoid processes, the hero’s journey, and ego defenses such as projection. Oxford (2004) uses the Jungian concept of individuation as a theoretical framework for understanding modern, nonindigenous women’s experience of spiritual awakening induced by entheogenic, or psychedelic, plant substances. Oxford,
2 LSD stands for lysergic acid dythilamide, “a crystalline compound . . . derived from lysergic acid and used as a powerful hallucinogenic drug” (American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 1996).
4 Scott Hill Dissertation Proposal like Heuser, contributes to a dialogue between Jungian and transpersonal psychology by also drawing from Grof’s treatment of nonordinary states of consciousness. Although all these dissertations interpret specific aspects of psychedelic experience from a Jungian perspective, none of them investigate in depth how Jung’s psychology elucidates the fundamental nature of psychedelic experience or the potential of psychedelics to induce psychotic reactions. Only Heuser (2006) draws even moderately from Jung’s primary sources; and although his analysis of psychedelic experience vis-à-vis Jung’s psychology is broad, it lacks the depth necessary to establish a Jungian framework for understanding the nature of psychedelic experience. Howe’s (2008) dissertation, Integrating Theories of Stanislav Grof and C.G. Jung, deepens the dialogue between Jungian and transpersonal psychology by, first, comparing Grofian systems of condensed experience (COEX) and various Jungian concepts of feeling-toned complexes; second, comparing Grofian and Jungian interpretations of the death-rebirth process; and third, comparing Grofian and Jungian approaches to psychotherapy. Although Howe draws much more thoroughly from Jung’s primary sources than the other dissertation authors mentioned here, and although he discusses Jung’s theory in terms of Grof’s psychedelic research, his treatment of psychedelic experience per se is extremely limited. Rather, his analysis compares Grof’s and Jung’s theories of the psyche’s structure and dynamics and therefore only implicitly elucidates the nature of psychedelic experience. As valuable as each of these dissertations is regarding various aspects of the relationship between Jung’s psychology and psychedelic experience, none of them provides a foundation for building a Jungian framework for understanding the fundamental nature of psychedelic experience in general or of psychedelic-induced psychotic states of consciousness in particular.
The Need for a Jungian Framework for Understanding Psychedelic Experience
The lack of in-depth treatment of the relationship between Jungian psychology and psychedelic experience is partially due to the fact that the first generation of psychedelic research in the 1950s and early 1960s was dominated by investigators, like Grof at that time, with a Freudian psychoanalytic orientation. This psychoanalytic legacy is reflected in the most recent authoritative work on psychedelic psychotherapy,
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Psychedelic Medicine: New Evidence for Hallucinogenic Substances as Treatments (Winkelman & Roberts, 2007), which includes a psychoanalytic framework (as well as shamanic and Grofian frameworks) for psychedelic psychotherapy but no Jungian framework. Any interest in the Jungian community to develop a framework for psychedelic psychotherapy has likely been inhibited by the ban imposed on psychedelic research in the mid 1960s. Be that as it may, the paucity of references to psychedelic- induced images or visions in the Jungian literature is remarkable. The main reason for this curious lacuna is surely the distance Jungians have traditionally adopted to psychedelics (Singer, 1994; von Franz, 1993), a distance that stems from Jung’s severe criticism of psychedelic psychotherapy (von Franz, 1993, pp. 297-305). An excellent reflection of Jung’s critical attitude toward psychedelics can be found in his letters, several of which reflect his view that psychedelics have the potential to open the collective unconscious to those who use them. He is quite critical of their use for that reason, explaining that psychedelics are a shortcut into realms of the unconscious for which the user is inevitably unprepared (Adler & Jung, 1975, p. 222). Jung also conveys that, although he does not know from experience, he can suppose that psychedelics could “release a latent, potential psychosis”(ibid.), adding that “it would be a highly interesting though equally disagreeable experience” (ibid.). Jung expresses his skepticism even more harshly in a letter to Victor White: It is quite awful that the alienists have caught hold of a new poison to play with, without the faintest knowledge or feeling of responsibility. It is just as if a surgeon had never learned further than to cut open his patient’s belly and to leave things there. (ibid., p. 173; see also pp. 229-230, 318-319, 382-383)
Although the problems Jung identifies should be taken seriously, I see the value of looking beyond Jung’s dismissive critique to his psychology in order to take advantage of its profound insights into the nature of psychedelic experience. I intend to do this by investigating and discussing the concepts and principles in Jung’s psychology that are most relevant to elucidating the nature of psychedelic experience for the purpose of constructing a tentative Jungian framework for understanding the nature of psychedelic experience.
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Research Objectives, Scope and Limitations Research Objectives
Given my goals to carry out a Jungian interpretation of psychedelic experience, to construct a tentative Jungian framework for understanding psychedelic experience, and to propose basic considerations for a Jungian approach to treating psychedelic-induced psychotic states, my dissertation’s specific research objectives are to elucidate the following from a Jungian perspective: 1) the fundamental psychological nature of psychedelic experience 2) the nature of acute psychotic reactions to psychedelic experience 3) the consequent treatment implications of the above
The way in which I will accomplish these goals and objectives should become clear in the following sections of this proposal. Before going further, however, I would like to briefly define two basic terms. When I use the term framework, I mean a system of concepts and principles used as a basis for interpreting, understanding, and explaining phenomena and for guiding research and practice. The tentative Jungian framework I envision would provide an initial basis for interpreting, understanding, and explaining the nature of psychedelic experience, for guiding related research, and for guiding the practice of psychedelic psychotherapy and the treatment of psychedelic-induced psychotic states. This framework will be the result of my dissertation’s Jungian interpretation of psychedelic experience, the tentative contents of which are outlined in the Chapter Breakdown section, below (pp. 31-33). When I speak of acute psychotic reactions to psychedelic experiences, I refer to a subset of the conditions that Grof identifies as potential adverse reactions to psychedelic psychotherapy. These include the intensification of preexisting psychiatric disorders, the occurrence of new symptoms, and the subsequent recurrence of these problematic states (1994, p. 153). Furthermore, Grof characterizes the psychotic style of confronting a psychedelic experience as “exteriorization of the process, excessive use of the mechanism of projection, and indiscriminate acting out” (1985, p. 303).
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Scope and Limitations
The Range of Psychedelic Experiences and Substances Treated Given its astonishing variability, Grinspoon & Bakalar suggest that psychedelic experience is as difficult to describe and classify as human experience itself (1997, pp. 89-89). Such classic volumes as The Varieties of Psychedelic Experience (Masters & Houston, 1966), LSD Psychotherapy (Grof, 1994), and Psychedelic Drugs Reconsidered (Grinspoon & Bakalar, 1997) admirably attempt to describe psychedelic experience comprehensively. I, however, will limit my study to a Jungian interpretation of the most fundamental characteristics of psychedelic experience. Within Jung’s treatment of the conscious mind’s relationship to the unconscious, especially the archetypal unconscious, and his treatment of related concepts such as abaissement du niveau mental, complexes, the shadow, psychosis, and integration, Jung offers an insightful understanding of the fundamental effects that psychedelic drugs have on the psyche, including their potential to induce psychotic reactions. This, then, will be the focus of my study. The range of psychedelic substances is also vast, and even within the more limited range represented in psychedelic research, a wide variety of substances have been used (Multidisciplinary Association of Psychedelic Studies, 2008a). Although different psychedelic drugs vary in their specific effects, as a class they affect the mind in similar ways (Nelson, 1994, p. 149-150). I will focus on the fundamental psychological effects that psychedelics share in common rather than treating their distinctive effects.
The Psychological Nature of Psychedelic Experience Jung’s approach to the psyche is essentially psychological rather than physiological (1928, pars. 497-498; see also 1958a, par. 570 ), and my study will be limited to the psychological basis of psychedelic experience.
The Tentative Nature of My Jungian Framework Given the original nature of my investigation and the vastness and complexity of Jung’s psychology, I can only hope that the framework I construct in this dissertation will provide a solid basis for ongoing refinements and improvements by myself and others. It would be unrealistic and indeed undesirable to view the results of my present efforts as complete, much less conclusive.
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The Hypothetical Nature of the Proposed Jungian Guidelines Although an initial Jungian interpretation of psychedelic experience can be accomplished within the scope of this dissertation, verification of the proposed treatment implications of my study must await formal clinical trails and, as Merkur suggests in relation to his psychoanalytic framework (2007, p. 198), must await confirmation through trial-and-error application in psychotherapy with individuals.
The Limited Scope of the Proposed Jungian Guidelines I do not intend to propose a comprehensive set of guidelines for Jungian psychedelic psychotherapy. I will only supplement existing guidelines, such as those found in Winkelman and Roberts’ Psychedelic Medicine (2007) and in the Multidisciplinary Association of Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) Rites of Passage Project (2008b), by suggesting specific treatment implications that stem from a Jungian interpretation of psychedelic experience.
My Approach to Trauma There is an extensive body of work on the nature and treatment of trauma. Beyond very briefly establishing the context for my discussion of trauma in my dissertation’s literature review, I will discuss trauma entirely in Jungian terms. Within these limits, I will investigate trauma in relation to psychedelics by considering 1) difficult psychedelic experiences as traumatic experiences in their own right, and 2) the therapeutic implications of the potential psychedelics have to bring past trauma to consciousness.
The Scope of Jung’s Work Treated As indicated in my research bibliography’s primary sources, below (p. 35), I will focus on Jung’s core treatment of trauma, psychosis, psychotherapy, integration, and the structure and dynamics of the psyche. Although I may occasionally refer incidentally to any topic within Jung’s extensive body of work, my investigation of Jung’s psychology will not address in any significant way his amplification of these central themes through his extensive inquiry into religion, mythology, alchemy, or astrology, all of which I see as important subjects for further inquiry following the completion of my dissertation.
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Literature Review
Psychedelics and Trauma
The relationship between psychedelics and trauma is a fascinatingly complex one that brings to mind the proverbial power of fire to create as well as destroy. On the one hand, psychedelic drugs have damaged many a naive and careless user. On the other hand, when used respectfully and responsibly, psychedelic drugs have for centuries been uniquely effective agents for healing and psychospiritual transformation (Grob, 2002a; Winkelman & Roberts, 2007). Currently, there is a resurgence of empirical research into the psychotherapeutic effectiveness of psychedelics, thanks in large part to the tireless advocacy for government-approved research by public policy organizations like the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, which documents international psychedelic research on its website (2008a). A recent Scientific American Mind review of current research notes that “studies are focusing on psychedelic treatments for cluster headaches, depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), severe anxiety in terminal cancer patients, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), alcoholism and opiate addiction” (Brown, 2007/2008, p. 68).
Psychedelic-Induced Trauma Psychedelic experiences can be traumatic in their own right, as suggested by the counterculture term “bad trips,” or difficult psychedelic experiences, and as indicated by long-established contraindications and safeguards for the responsible practice of psychedelic psychotherapy (Cohen, 1967, p. 208 ff.; Frecska, 2007; Grof, 1994, pp. 151-154). Even difficult psychedelic experiences can have beneficial effects, however. As the saying goes, bad trips can be the best trips, and current psychedelic literature tends to view difficult psychedelic experiences as opportunities for psychological insight and growth rather than intrinsically traumatic experiences (Bravo and Grob, 1996a, p. 340).3 Such optimistic views are a reflection of the great number of successfully resolved psychedelic emergencies (Grof, 1994, pp. 314-316; Mojeiko, 2007, p. 15) as well as the psychedelic community’s guarded posture vis-à-vis adverse reactions to
3 I anticipate that my dissertation will distinguish more clearly traumatic psychedelic experiences from difficult ones.
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psychedelics in the wake of exaggeratedly negative characterizations of these drugs in the mainstream media since the 1960s. Given the potential for psychedelic drugs to induce extraordinary degrees of emotional stress and even psychotic reactions of varying intensity and duration, however, there should be no question that psychedelic experiences can be truly traumatic (Blewett & Chwelos, 1959; Cohen, 1967, pp. 266-277; Grof, 1994, pp. 151, 160, 310-311).
Psychedelic Psychotherapy as Treatment for Trauma The relationship between psychedelics and trauma is usually discussed in terms of the potential psychedelics have to bring past trauma to conscious awareness by overcoming defenses against treatment and resistance to trauma-based memories and feelings (Bastiaans, 1983; Grob, 2002b, p. 273; Grof, 1994, p. 28). Grof’s observations from extensive psychedelic psychotherapy research clearly indicate the extraordinary potential psychedelics have to facilitate insights and healing through reliving past traumatic experiences (1994, pp. 30, 36, 74, 105, 207, 282, 285). Grof attributes the great success he and his colleagues have had using LSD (lysergic acid diethylamide) for treating a wide range of trauma-induced disorders to LSD’s unique properties as an abreactive agent (ibid., p. 250); and he frequently encourages therapists, whether conducting psychedelic psychotherapy or non-drug forms of experiential psychotherapy, to facilitate the free flow of energy and the completion of experiential gestalts—no matter how challenging the content of those experiences—because in his view this difficult process is inherently healing (1985, p. 381; 1994, p. 282).
Traumatic Psychedelic Experiences and Childhood Trauma: A Jungian Link I have discovered striking parallels between threatening psychedelic-induced images and the “archaic defenses” that Jungian psychologist Donald Kalsched has seen in victims of childhood trauma. Kalsched (1996) has found that in response to the unbearable pain of severe trauma, the personality can split to create an autonomous persecutory figure, which emerges in dreams and fantasies as personified archetypal daimonic images and which paradoxically acts to protect the personality by attacking it (Kalsched, 1996, p. 2; Mogenson, 2005, p. 202). Kalsched’s thesis suggests that some terrifying psychedelic-induced imagery (demons, satanic figures, and similar archetypal figures) could be manifestations of psychic dissociations arising from past trauma.
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Psychedelics and Psychosis Psychedelics as Psychosis-Inducing Substances Our understanding of the relationship between psychedelic-induced psychotic states and endogenous, or “natural,” psychosis has changed as researchers have become more knowledgeable about the psychological effects of psychedelics. In the early 1950s, the relationship between psychedelic experience and natural psychosis was assumed to be so strong that the mode of investigation into the psychological effects of psychedelics was referred to as “psychotomimetic” (psychosis-inducing or psychosis-mimicking) because these drugs were thought to evoke a temporary “model psychosis.” And they were thereby thought to establish a new model for understanding the biological basis of mental illness, especially schizophrenia (Bravo and Grob, 1996a, p. 335; Grinspoon & Bakalar, 1997, p. 6; Grob, 2002b, p. 268; Grof, 1994, p. 24).
Psychedelic-induced psychotic states and schizophrenia compared. Harvard psychiatrist Max Rinkel summarized the psychotomimetic concept when he concluded that “the psychotic phenomena produced were predominantly schizophrenic-like symptoms” (quoted in Grob, 2002b, p. 271). In Psychedelic Drugs Reconsidered (1997, pp. 245-246), Grinspoon and Bakalar outline the grounds on which psychedelic-induced psychotic states can be compared to natural psychosis. Generally speaking, such psychedelic states are compared with schizophrenia. Despite great variations among schizophrenics, they share certain common characteristics such as an abnormal sense of reality and the attribution of inappropriate meanings to situations. The common characteristics among schizophrenics are then used as a basis for comparison to the common characteristics among psychedelic-induced psychotic states. Among the several classifications of schizophrenia, the most important distinction for the purpose of comparison with psychedelic-induced psychosis is the distinction made between acute, or reactive (short-term), and chronic schizophrenia. The consensus in the field is that the strongest correlation is found between psychedelic-induced psychosis and acute schizophrenia, which Grinspoon and Bakalar characterize as having “a relatively sudden onset . . . , often in a previously normal person, [which] often ends in full recovery after a period of several days to several months, although it may recur” (1997, p. 245). Lukoff refers to such abrupt and relatively short-term experiences as psychotic
12 Scott Hill Dissertation Proposal episodes with mystical features or spiritual emergencies with psychotic features (1996, p. 272). The distinction between acute and chronic psychosis is an important one for my study of psychedelic-induced psychosis. Although I often use the term psychosis interchangeably with the term psychotic states, and although the literature I have reviewed often does the same, the focus of my study is on relatively temporary psychedelic-induced psychotic states and not on chronic psychosis brought on by psychedelics. Having distinguished acute from chronic schizophrenia, Grinspoon and Bakalar’s review of the relevant scholarly literature revealed a “startling resemblance between schizophrenic and psychedelic experience” (1997, p. 248). A number of papers “find the effects of psychedelic drugs and the symptoms of schizophrenia to be almost the same” (ibid.) “It is not surprising,” Grinspoon and Bakalar conclude, “that psychedelic drugs were long regarded as a potential tool of special value in the study of endogenous psychosis” (ibid.). They add, however, that psychedelic-induced psychosis also differs in significant respects from schizophrenia (Grinspoon & Bakalar, 1997, p. 248). In the late 1950s and early 1960s, after many studies comparing psychedelic experience with psychosis, most researchers concluded that although there are symptomatic resemblances, the clinical syndrome of psychosis as a whole is significantly different than psychedelic-induced psychosis (Hollister, 1968, p. 122; see also Bravo and Grob, 1996a, p. 335; Grinspoon and Bakalar, 1997, pp. 6, 248-249; Grof, 1994, p. 25). In his review of the psychotomimetic research model, Grob notes that the central argument against that model was forcefully articulated in 1959 by Manfred Bleuler. Bleuler argued that schizophrenia is characterized by “the gradual and inexorable progression of a symptom complex that included disturbed thought processes, depersonalization and auditory hallucinations, evolving into a generalized functional incapacitation” (Grob, 2002b, p. 271).
Criticism of the psychotomimetic model. As higher doses of psychedelics (usually 200 micrograms of LSD or more) were tested in therapeutic applications, successful treatments became associated with experiences of psychedelic-induced mystical states of consciousness. Many researchers thereby discovered that psychedelics could do much more than induce temporary
13 Scott Hill Dissertation Proposal psychoses, and the term psychedelic (“mind manifesting,” or “mind-revealing”) was coined by Humphry Osmond to indicate that these substances could induce life- enhancing visions and transformative experiences as well as pathological states (Grob, 2002b, p. 274-275; Grof, 1994, p. 24). The chemical psychosis model became discredited, then, because it promoted a reductionistic view of the psychedelic experience as an inherently pathological state and offered simplistic explanations of the biochemical etiology of schizophrenia, which were not convincingly supported by empirical data (Grof, 1994, p. 25).
The psychotomimetic model reconsidered. Although issues with the psychotomimetic model are important and deserve to be addressed, the problematic nature of the psychotomimetic paradigm does not invalidate the need to inquire into the relationship between psychedelic experience and psychosis for the purpose of dealing with certain psychedelic crises. Many important questions about the relationship between psychedelic experience and psychotic states remain unanswered (Grinspoon and Bakalar, 1997, p. 6), and some investigators renewed investigation into that relationship in the 1980s (Fischman, 1983). Despite good reasons for abandoning the psychotomimetic model, I think that a reexamination of the parallels between psychedelic-induced psychotic states and natural psychosis is worthwhile for reasons other than those traditionally advocated. To begin with, as Grinspoon and Bakalar say, “the similarities between some kinds of psychedelic experiences and some forms of schizophrenia, remain impressive despite the divergences” (1997, p. 249). And Nelson notes that although theorists have abandoned psychedelics as a model for psychosis because the psychedelic experience differs greatly from chronic schizophrenia, the first stages of an acute psychosis show an unmistakable resemblance to a psychedelic experience (1994, p. 150). Grinspoon and Bakalar conclude their treatment of psychedelics and psychosis by saying: Psychedelic experiences should not be identified with an acute endogenous psychosis, especially if the purpose is either to glorify psychotics or to denounce drug users. But it would also be a mistake to ignore the similarities. As we have seen, the overlap in symptoms is often striking, the causes might yet turn out to be related, and there might even be implications for treatment. (1997, p. 252)
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I think we should utilize knowledge that has been gained from the psychotomimetic model of research to increase our understanding of psychedelic-induced psychotic states. Whereas the psychotomimetic paradigm used psychedelics to find clues to the nature, causes, and treatment of endogenous psychosis, we can in effect turn the chemical psychosis paradigm on its head. That is, we can use knowledge about the similarities between natural psychosis and psychedelic-induced psychotic states as well as knowledge about the nature, causes, and treatment of natural psychosis to provide clues to the nature, causes, and treatment of psychotic reactions to psychedelic experiences. The tentative conclusion I come to in my review of the literature on psychedelics and psychosis is that, although I need to be careful not to assume overly general parallels between psychedelic-induced psychotic states and endogenous psychosis, there is substantial reason to speak of acute psychotic states as one category of psychedelic experience and to draw cautious comparisons between psychedelic-induced psychotic states and acute schizophrenia. I am certainly not suggesting that psychedelic experience is inherently psychotic. Nor am I saying that psychedelic-induced psychotic states are inevitably harmful. The fact that I plan to investigate the beneficial as well as harmful potential of psychedelic-induced psychotic states should indicate my intention to objectively investigate such states.
Psychedelics, Psychosis, and Trauma: The Transformative Potential Transformation is treated variously in the psychedelic literature that I have reviewed as psychological or spiritual change, development, and healing.4 Many sources suggest, implicitly if not explicitly, that psychological and spiritual development are both integrally related aspects of psychedelic and therapeutic experience (e.g., Grob, 2002a; Grof, 1994; Lukoff, Lu, & Turner, 1996; Lukoff, Zanger, & Lu, 1990; Roberts, 2001; Stolaroff, 1994; Winkelman & Roberts, 2007). Although my discussion of transformation will at times emphasize psychological development and will at other times emphasize spiritual development, I do not make hard and fast distinctions between the two. I am agnostic about the metaphysical nature of spiritual experiences and domains, and I
4 Parsing transform into trans as beyond or change and form as structure or essence, I generally think of transformation as a fundamental change in one’s personality structure.
15 Scott Hill Dissertation Proposal therefore use the term psychospiritual transformation because I accept the change I discuss as psychological or spiritual in nature, or as some indefinable blend of both. In this regard, I find Jung’s psychology, with its phenomenological treatment of religious experience, a profoundly insightful and useful guide to the psychospiritual forces that have affected my life for so many years. In Shadow, Self, Sprit: Essays in Transpersonal Psychology, Daniels notes Jung’s refusal to draw metaphysical conclusions from psychological experience (2005, pp. 225); and he concludes, appropriately I think, that transpersonal psychologists should “bracket as far as possible ALL metaphysical assumptions in what should essentially become a phenomenological examination of experiences of transformation” free of belief and interpretation (p. 230). The idea of transformation runs all through Jung’s work (Samuels, Shorter, & Plaut, 1986, p. 151). Quite generally, Jung’s concept of transformation can be characterized as a psychological transition involving temporary regression and ego loss as unconscious material becomes conscious in the ongoing process of a person’s becoming more psychologically whole (ibid.). Although Jung was careful to discuss spirituality in psychological terms, and although most of his work takes an agnostic stance towards extrapsychic realities (Ferrer, 2002, pp. 44-45), his concept of transformation is inherently related to what he conceived as the psyche’s “religious function” (Samuels et al., 1986, p. 130; see also Corbett, 1996, and Edinger, 1992). In Psychology and Religion (1938/1966), Jung characterized religion as “the attitude peculiar to a consciousness which has been altered by experience of the numinosum” (p. 6). For Jung it is an elementary truth that “the God-image corresponds to a definite complex of psychological facts, and is thus a quantity which we can operate with; but what God is in himself remains a question outside the competence of all psychology” (1948, par. 528). Even though Jung is adamant about the fundamental role that the psyche plays in religious experience, his agnosticism regarding supernatural realities by definition neither denies nor affirms them (Hill, 2007b, p. 14).
The Transformative Potential of Psychedelics Psychedelic drugs have been used for religious purposes since prehistoric times, and traditional shamanic practices with psychedelic substances provide a context for using psychedelics in psychotherapy (Goldsmith, 2007, p. 108; Grob, 2002a, Schultes &
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Hofmann, 1992; Weil, 1986; Winkelman, 2007b, pp. 2-3; Wulff, 1997, p. 90). According to Dobkin de Rios and Winkelman, many contemporary shamanic practitioners maintain that psychedelics repeatedly bring about changes in people’s perception of reality that lead to a spiritual sense of oneness with the universe (1989, p. 4). Probably millions of individuals have had psychedelic experiences that have left them with the conviction that they understood the nature of mystical experiences known otherwise only by venerated religious sages (Grinspoon and Bakalar, 1997, pp. 86-88). And finally, the transformative potential of psychedelics is supported by the assessment of researchers who observed and analyzed tens of thousands of psychedelic sessions in experimental and clinical studies in the 1950s and 1960s (Walsh & Grob, 2007). Although many of those studies would not meet current empirical standards, and therefore must be accepted tentatively awaiting further clinical research, say Walsh and Grob, their interviews with these original researchers show that “the number, variety, and extent of transformations that these researchers describe are dramatic” (ibid., p. 218). Because the transformative nature of psychedelics is usually understood as a significant, long-term psychological or spiritual change in a person’s life, we must distinguish between profound but temporary psychospiritual experiences and experiences that result in enduring changes in one’s personality, attitudes, world view, and behavior (Bravo & Grob, 1996b, p. 181; Smith, 2000). Speaking in spiritual terms in his 1964 Journal of Philosophy essay “Do Drugs Have Religious Import?,” Huston Smith argues convincingly that we must distinguish between psychedelic-induced religious experiences and psychedelic-inspired religious lives (2000, p. 305). In his long-term follow-up study to the Good Friday Experiment on psychedelic-induced mystical experience, Doblin used similar standards for evaluating the religious significance of subjects’ experience. Doblin characterizes these standards as “persisting positive effects” (2001, p. 74). The actual duration of such transformative effects continues to be a matter of debate in the field. Representing those who question the lasting value of psychedelic transformations, Goldsmith suggests that even when psychedelics are proven to be therapeutically effective, their benefits are not permanent (2007, p. 113). Stolaroff, on the
5 Smith’s essay was reprinted as a chapter in his Cleansing the Doors of Perception: The Religious Significance of Entheogenic Plants and Chemicals (2000). See also “Psychedelic Theophanies and the Religious Life,” Chapter 3, in the same book.
17 Scott Hill Dissertation Proposal other hand, summarizes the individual and collective potential for transformation that many advocates see, when he says that “psychedelics, used with good motivation, skill, and integrity, can contribute much toward easing the pain and suffering of the world while giving access to wisdom and compassion for spiritual development” (2002, p. 103). Grinspoon and Bakalar observe in their review of the literature on psychedelic research that although psychedelics are no longer seen as the key to changing the world, many people retain a strong sense of possibilities not yet realized, “of something felt as intensely real and not yet explained or explained away” (1997, p. 88).
The Transformative Potential of Psychotic States Even though Jung always regarded schizophrenia as a mental disorder, he was the first to recognize it as the psyche’s effort to heal itself and as a pathology amenable to psychotherapy (Perry, 1999, p. 63). Jung started to recognize the healing potential of acute psychotic episodes as early as 1914 (Perry, 1976. pp. 11-12), and one finds traces of this insight as early as 1911 in his views on the nature and value of dreams (Jung, 1911-1912). In his essay “The Importance of the Unconscious in Psychotherapy” (1914b), Jung describes the compensating function of the unconscious, a balancing of conscious tendencies that plays out in so-called normal people and psychotics alike. “In normal people the principal function of the unconscious is to effect a compensation and to produce a balance” (ibid., par. 449), he says. “[Such] manifestations of the unconscious in actually insane patients are just as clear, but are not so well recognized” (ibid., par. 452). These unconscious, corrective manifestations in the mind of the psychotic are not so readily recognized, Jung observed, because they typically present themselves in a form that ego consciousness—in doctor and patient alike—finds intolerably disturbing. The unfortunate consequence of such disturbing manifestations is the too-common obstruction of what should be, in Jung’s view, “the beginning of the healing process” (ibid., pars. 458, 465). As Jung says in “The Structure of the Psyche,” we need to remember “the fundamental principle that the symptomatology of an illness is at the same time a natural attempt at healing” (1927/1931, par. 312). Jung encourages us, that is, to look at the psychotic’s delusions without prejudice and to appreciate that through them the individual is in fact attempting with all his or her might to bring something to completion
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(Jung, 1914a, par. 410). Jung distinguishes the content of his patients’ delusions from their confusion of that content with reality, and he maintains that such delusions are not in themselves pathological. They are subjectively valid and therefore justifiable within subjective limits (ibid., par. 412). If the therapist can engage in an authentic, caring way with the patient and the patient’s inner experience, the therapist may be able to see a deeply meaningful process in what at first appears to be only a fragmented picture of strange ideas, says Jungian psychotherapist Perry (1999). And with the support of an enlightened and engaged therapist, the patient may be able to make the critical turn from projecting this process onto the world to recognizing it as an expression of his or her own unconscious. If this is possible, healing can begin (ibid., pp. 23-26, 71; see also Lukoff, 1996). We need to ask, however, whether bringing images, delusions, and projections to consciousness, even under the guidance of a sensitive and skillful therapist, is sufficient for individuals struggling with the deeply disturbing material manifested in psychotic states. To begin with, we need to understand Jung’s explanation of the psychological process involved in such healing. We also require a more specific and complete explanation of how such general principles are applied in the practice of psychotherapy. I introduce these topics in the section on Jung’s approach to integration, below (p. 18).
Psychedelics, Psychosis, and Transformation
Given the great quantity of literature on the relationship between psychedelics and psychosis, and the great quantity of literature on the relationship between psychedelics and transformation, it is notable that relatively little literature looks at all three elements—psychedelics, psychosis, and transformation—together. There are notable exceptions to this rule, however. Although he is open to criticism for romanticizing psychosis, R.D. Laing promoted the view that psychosis is “a harrowing but revelatory and potentially restorative mental journey with some of the same virtues as an LSD experience” (Grinspoon and Bakalar, 1997, p. 6). Like Jungian psychotherapist Perry, Laing views psychosis as a potential psychospiritual breakthrough, not simply a breakdown (Laing, 1979, p. 115).
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Transpersonal psychologist David Lukoff appreciates Perry’s view of acute psychosis “as a renewal process in which the psyche is seeking to reorganize itself fundamentally” (Lukoff, 1996, p. 271). Lukoff writes of his own “hallucinogen-induced psychotic disorder” that began in 1971 when he was twenty-three years old (ibid., p. 278; Lukoff, 1991). Lukoff describes what he calls his “shamanistic initiatory crisis” (1991, p. 28) and the long process through which he was able “to integrate [his] psychotic episode as a transformative transpersonal experience” (1996, p. 279). Lukoff went on to develop new and valuable forms of transpersonal psychotherapy for what he calls “psychotic disorders and spiritual emergencies with psychotic features” (1996). Two important figures in the history of psychedelics, Ralph Metzner and Ram Dass (formally Richard Alpert), have both dedicated their lives to realizing the transformative potential of the psychedelic experience. And both view the experience of psychotic states as a common element in the psychedelic experience. As Metzner puts it, the potential for psychedelic drugs to “trigger hellish, psychotic-like trips is so well known that they were first referred to as psychotomimetic” (1998b, p. 81). Metzner explains, nevertheless, that when individuals experiencing a psychedelic-triggered psychosis can yield to the recognition that they are involved in a transitional process that has a definite purpose or “end,” they come to regard such experiences “as a necessary purgation, accepted—even welcomed—for their transformative power” (ibid., pp. 81-82). Ram Dass, speaking to therapists at the Menninger Clinic in the early 1970s about an alternative framework for understanding psychosis, and alluding to insights arising from psychedelic experience, explains that “the journey of consciousness is to go to the place where you see that all [the different realities] are really relative [and] merely perceptual vantage points for looking at it all” (1979, p. 129). “You have to be able to go in and out of all of them, that any one you get stuck in is the wrong one” ( ibid.). Transpersonal psychologist Stanislav Grof’s attitude toward psychosis was radically influenced by his extensive psychedelic research. “In the light of LSD psychotherapy and other powerful experiential approaches,” he says, “the concept of psychosis will have to be dramatically revised and reevaluated” (1985, p. 315). Grof belongs to the school of psychological thought that sees the positive potential in the psychotic process (1985, p. 295). If properly understood, Grof asserts, the psychotic
20 Scott Hill Dissertation Proposal process can result in personal and collective transformation (ibid.). From this theoretical perspective, Grof suggests that it is even appropriate to use psychedelics to “intensify and accelerate the [psychotic] process and bring it to a positive resolution” (ibid., p. 296).
Jung’s Approach to the Therapeutic Process of Integration We find an excellent indication of Jung’s view of the psychological process involved in healing and transformation in his essay “The Transcendent Function” (1916/1957). Here Jung presents a theoretical foundation for the integration of activated unconscious material, a process that essentially involves bringing it into what he calls a constructive or synthetic relationship to consciousness. This process is usually mediated by an analyst for the patient, but it can also be done independently, as Jung did for himself (Jung, 1963, chap. 6). By bringing together the opposites, as Jung expresses it, the unconscious can more effectively compensate the one-sided tendencies of consciousness, thereby creating an awareness that embraces, and thus “transcends,” both (Perry, 1999. p. 69). The meaning and value of unconscious contents, Jung says, “are revealed only through their integration into the personality as a whole” (1916/1957, Prefatory Note, p. 67). In describing the transcendent function, Jung asks a fundamental therapeutic question that is central to integrating difficult psychedelic experiences: “What kind of mental and moral attitude is it necessary to have towards the disturbing influences of the unconscious, and how might they be conveyed to the patient?” (1916/1957, par. 144). The answer for Jung is an appreciation of the inseparable relationship between consciousness and the unconscious and the recognition of the value of unconscious compensation. Ideally, the analyst, from his or her own experience of integration, mediates the transcendent function for the patient and thereby helps the patient “bring conscious and unconscious together and so arrive at a new attitude” (ibid.). Jung explains that this method is based on evaluating symbols from the unconscious, which he sees as “the best possible expression for a complex fact not yet clearly apprehended by consciousness” (1916/1957, par. 148). For Jung, unconscious material (such as a dream) transmits symbolic expression to consciousness (ibid., par. 152f.), which must in turn integrate what it experiences as its opposite aspect in order to heal. To come to terms with the unconscious, says Jung, it is essential that the ego and the
21 Scott Hill Dissertation Proposal unconscious come into a reciprocal relationship. “The position of the ego must be maintained as being of equal value to the counter-position of the unconscious, and vice versa” (ibid., par. 183). According to Jung, such treatment renews the whole personality and penetrates every aspect of one’s life. It means that the unconscious must be taken seriously so that it can cooperate with consciousness—instead of disturbing it (1916/1957, par. 184). This process becomes a kind of constructive confrontation that “generates a tension charged with energy and creates a living, third thing. . . . So long as these [opposites] are kept apart—naturally for the purpose of avoiding conflict—they do not function and remain inert” (ibid., par. 189). “Consciousness is continually widened through the confrontation with previously unconscious contents, or—to be more accurate—could be widened if it took the trouble to integrate them,” concludes Jung (1916/1957, par. 193). With sufficient guidance by the therapist and with intelligence, self-confidence, and will-power on the part of the patient, the transcendent function gives one “a way of attaining liberation by one’s own efforts and of finding the courage to be oneself” (ibid.).
The therapeutic value of abreaction: Jung’s and Grof’s views compared. We find another indication of Jung’s approach to integration in “The Therapeutic Value of Abreaction” (1921/1928). In this essay, Jung criticizes the use of abreaction, or “the dramatic rehearsal of the traumatic moment [and] its emotional recapitulation” as a technique for treating trauma (ibid., par. 262). For Jung, the essential factor in trauma “is the dissociation of the psyche and not the existence of a highly charged affect” (ibid., par. 266). “The main therapeutic problem,” Jung says, “is not abreaction but how to integrate the dissociation” (ibid.). Despite the significant compatibility between Jung’s psychology and Grof’s approach to psychedelic psychotherapy, Grof and Jung hold intriguingly different views of the value of abreaction. Grof highly values abreaction as an important component of LSD psychotherapy, and he attributes the failure of abreaction reported in the psychiatric literature to its limited and unsystematic use, to its not having been carried to experiential extremes, which he says usually leads to a successful resolution (1985, p. 381).
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Both Grof’s abreactive approach and Jung’s integrative approach to treating trauma would seem to have great value in understanding the nature and transformative potential of the psychedelic experience. Given Grof’s assessment that the correct use of abreaction usually leads to a successful resolution, it seems that psychedelic therapists and therapists treating adverse reactions to psychedelics would benefit by considering Jung’s integrative approach as either a complement or alternative to abreaction.
Psychedelic Psychotherapy The psycholytic and psychedelic models. Researchers typically identify two major models of psychedelic psychotherapy: psycholytic and psychedelic therapies. Although this is a common and useful distinction, the two therapies should not be reduced to an irreconcilable dichotomy because they share common features and goals (Grof, 1994, pp. 115-116) and because many combinations of the two have evolved in practice (Grinspoon & Bakalar, 1997, p. 196). Early experimentation at Sandoz laboratories in the late 1940s, following Albert Hofmann’s personal experiences with LSD, indicated that relatively small amounts of LSD could facilitate the release of repressed unconscious material in a psychotherapeutic setting (Grob, 2002b, p. 273; Grinspoon and Bakalar, 1997, p. 194). The term psycholytic was coined to describe this “low-dose” model. The term’s root, lytic, which is derived from the Greek lysis for loosen or dissolve, refers to the release of tensions by dissolving psychological conflicts and defenses (Grof, 1994, p. 35). The low doses used in psycholytic therapy also allow individuals to become aware of unconscious content without overwhelming their ability to reflect and communicate (Bravo and Grob, 1996a, p. 336). “By facilitating ego regression, uncovering early childhood memories, and inducing an affective release,” Grob notes, “psychiatrists claimed to have achieved a breakthrough in reducing the duration and improving the outcome of psychotherapeutic treatment” (Grob, 2002b, pp. 273-274). Psycholytic therapy typically focuses on the personal unconscious and avoids the transpersonal realms of the collective unconscious (Bravo and Grob, 1996a, p. 336), and it tends to rely more on verbal psychotherapy within psychedelic-assisted sessions as well as in non-drug preparatory and follow-up sessions (Abramson, 1967, p. xi).
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When higher doses started to be used, the resulting experiences tended to be different, and a new model was developed. Initially conceived as a method of treating alcoholics by replicating the terrifying yet occasionally transformative hallucinatory experiences of the delirium tremens typical of alcohol withdrawal, Osmond and Hoffer administered high-dose sessions that led to some surprising results. Contrary to their expectations, they found that what distinguished successful treatment was the experience of psychedelic-induced mystical states of consciousness (Hoffer, 1970, p. 360). Osmond coined the term psychedelic (Huxley, 1999, p. 107), which means “mind manifesting,” “mind-revealing,” or “mind-opening” (Grinspoon & Bakalar, 1997, p. 8; Grof, 1994, p. 24; Metzner, 1998a) to distance their new approach from the traditional psychotomimetic model. In high-dose psychedelic therapy, the psychedelic experience itself, an extraordinarily overwhelming experience independent of verbal psychotherapy, is considered to be the potentially significant therapeutic agent (Abramson, 1967, p. xi; Buckman, 1967, p. 99; Ditman & Bailey, 1967, p. 75). Grof’s extensive theoretical work notwithstanding, Grinspoon and Bakalar suggest that the theoretical basis for the effectiveness of psychedelic therapy is less developed than the theoretical basis for the effectiveness of psycholytic therapy (1997, p. 194), which is in effect an extension of the therapist’s underlying psychotherapeutic orientation. (Psycholytic therapy traditionally has a psychoanalytic orientation. See, for instance, Leuner, 1983, and House, 2007, p. 185). The often overwhelming experience of psychedelic therapy potentially brings about an ego-dissolving mystical experience that drastically changes one’s perception of oneself and the world. Like the non-drug-induced spiritual conversions that these experiences resemble, such effects are notoriously resistant to theoretical explanation (Grinspoon & Bakalar, 1997, pp. 194-195). My dissertation will interpret these two models of psychedelic psychotherapy in terms of Jungian concepts and principles.
Therapeutic frameworks. Because most theorists see psychedelics as adjuncts to psychotherapy rather than healing agents in their own right, the therapeutic value of psychedelics is generally assumed to be significantly affected if not wholly determined by the nature of the therapy, the quality of the therapist, and the depth of integration and implementation of
24 Scott Hill Dissertation Proposal the experience (Buckman, 1967, p. 88; Bravo and Grob, 1996a, p. 337; House, 2007, pp. 179-184; Masters and Houston, 1970, p. 335; Victor, 1996, p. 331). Given the importance of these extra-pharmacological factors, the therapist’s theoretical framework clearly has a significant influence on his or her practice of psychedelic psychotherapy. Too often in the past, the underlying therapeutic orientation remained implicit in discussions about the nature, methods, and effectiveness of psychedelic psychotherapy (Buckman, 1967, p. 99). With publications like Psychedelic Medicines (Winkelman & Roberts, 2007), which surveys major theoretical frameworks, this situation seems to be improving. With many theoretical and methodological questions in need of investigation (Goldsmith, 2007, p. 109), and with theoretical differences leading to differences in therapeutic practice (Samuels, 1986, p. 11), we have good reason to be explicit and clear about the theoretical frameworks underlying psychedelic psychotherapy. Masters and Houston maintained that by 1970, although most therapists conducting psycholytic therapy were psychoanalysts, success with psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy had been reported by hundreds of therapists of various persuasions using a diverse range of established psychotherapeutic procedures from many countries of the world (1970, pp. 323-324). In 1967, Blair noted that the different theoretical approaches represented by conference papers on LSD psychotherapy was astounding (Buckman, 1967, p. 99; see also Ditman & Bailey, 1967, p. 75). In a 1969 review of psychedelic psychotherapy, Caldwell points out that the tendency of therapists to borrow techniques from each other and rapidly develop their own approach makes classification of distinct types of psychedelic psychotherapy difficult (p. 122). In 1996 Bravo and Grob reported that there was no standard procedure for psychedelic psychotherapy (1996a, p. 337). Despite the profusion of underlying, and often only implicit, therapeutic frameworks, and despite the consequent difficulty of classifying approaches to psychedelic psychotherapy, Caldwell suggested in his 1969 review that some general trends could be noted (p. 122). Given the lack of standardization and the probable extent of unofficial psychedelic psychotherapy practiced today, it would still seem difficult if not impossible to classify what one can imagine is an exuberant profusion of underlying frameworks. As Caldwell has suggested, however, some general trends can be identified; and drawing principally from Winkelman and Roberts (2007), I close my literature
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review with a brief overview of today’s most prominent frameworks for psychedelic psychotherapy. 1. Psychoanalytic: Psychedelic psychotherapy research between 1950 and the mid 1960s was dominated by a psychoanalytic orientation, and this is most evident in papers on psycholytic therapy (Abramson, 1967, p. xi; Buckman, 1967, pp. 84-85; Leuner, 1967, 1983). Although some psychoanalytically-oriented practitioners expanded their framework to include a wider range of orientations when they found the psychoanalytic framework too limited for the extraordinary variety of experiences and unconscious content they encountered in many psychedelic sessions (Grof, 1994), the psychoanalytic framework still holds a significant place in the literature (Merkur, 1998, 2007). However, it seems to have lost its eminence in the light of more recent approaches, all of which were developed out of intimate experience with psychedelics. The most prominent of these are listed below. 2. Grofian: The most authoritative, in-depth, and comprehensive framework for psychedelic psychotherapy has been constructed by Stanislav Grof and articulated in his definitive LSD Psychotherapy (1994; see also Tarnas, 1976), which includes a discussion of the nature, treatment, and transformative potential of psychedelic-induced psychotic states. In another definitive work, Beyond the Brain: Birth, Death and Transcendence in Psychotherapy (1985), Grof emphasizes the beneficial potential of the acute psychotic process (ibid., p. 295). If properly understood and worked through, Grof asserts, the psychotic process can result in personal and collective transformation (ibid.). 3. Shamanic: Prohibitions on experimental and clinical research with psychedelics has increased the importance of other kinds of research on their healing potential. An important form of alternative research has been the cross-cultural study of the use of psychedelics, sometimes called sacred medicines, by indigenous peoples throughout the world who have long used psychoactive plants for healing and spiritual purposes (Grob, 2002b, pp. 282, 285; Grof, 1984, p. 17). Such studies of indigenous practices, which are generically referred to as shamanic, will hopefully contribute to the beneficial use of psychedelic medicines within contemporary cultures lacking this knowledge and experience (Dombrowe, 2005; see also Calabrese, 2007; Metzner, 1999, 2002a, 2002b; Winkelman, 2007a). Indeed, such a synthesis of ancient wisdom and modern science
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could have far-reaching consequences for the health of our planet, which is currently in acute crisis (Grof, 1984, pp. 10, 21). 4. Hybrid: The cross-cultural study of indigenous healing with psychedelic substances has led to new forms of group-based psychedelic psychotherapy that combine elements of shamanic ritual healing with principles of transpersonal and psychedelic psychotherapy (Marsden & Lukoff, 2007, p. 287; Metzner, 1998a). Metzner calls such combined forms of psychedelic psychotherapy “hybrid shamanic psychotherapeutic rituals” (Metzner, 1999, pp. 40-42; see also Metzner, 1998a). Conducting sessions as neither shaman nor therapist, the group guide attempts to create conditions that help “establish a conscious and growth producing link between the participant and the hallucinogenic experience” (Marsden & Lukoff, 2007, p. 287).
Rationale and Plan for Completing the Literature Review I intend to complete this literature review by, first, drawing more extensively from the detailed review of the psychedelic literature in my first comprehensive exam paper on psychedelics, psychosis, and transformation. I plan to discuss terminology (e.g., psychedelics vs. hallucinogens and other terms), to define psychedelics, to summarize the recent historical and cultural context of psychedelic use (thereby giving context to the Jungian community’s attitude toward psychedelics), to review new research on psychedelic psychotherapy, and to discuss in more detail psychosis, the relationship between psychedelic experience and schizophrenia, the distinction between psychosis and psychotic states, psychedelics as psychosis-inducing substances, the transformative potential of psychedelic-induced psychotic states, and reconsideration of the psychotomimetic model. Second, I intend to review in more detail primary sources that discuss early research on psychedelic psychotherapy from the 1950s and early 1960s. This more extensive and specific review will build a more complete context for the discussion of a Jungian approach to psychedelic psychotherapy. This review of the early literature will include several highly relevant papers from a Jungian perspective by Sandison (1954), Cutner (1959), and Fordham (1963).
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With the exception of these several rare Jungian papers on psychedelic psychotherapy, most of the analysis of Jungian psychology vis-à-vis psychedelics will fall outside the literature review. And finally, as I implied but did not make explicit in the Scope and Limitations section above, I intend to very briefly establish the context for the discussion of trauma in this dissertation by reviewing the general literature on trauma, independent of this dissertation’s specific discussion of trauma vis-à-vis psychedelic psychotherapy and Jungian psychology. While it seems important to establish a broad context for the discussion of trauma, the general literature on trauma is vast, and I will need to be careful to keep this section of the literature review concise so as not to exceed the limitations of this dissertation.
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Significance
In the Textbook of Transpersonal Psychiatry and Psychology, Bravo and Grob close their review of psychedelic psychotherapy by stressing the need for new paradigms (1996a, p. 340). There are, as I have suggested throughout this proposal, many reasons to develop a Jungian framework. Others in the field of psychedelic psychotherapy have also indicated the usefulness of a Jungian framework. House, who recently examined psychedelic experience in relation to various psychotherapeutic approaches, says that Jung’s concepts of the collective unconscious and its archetypal symbols “provide a useful framework for understanding the powerful symbolic imagery commonly experienced in psychedelic sessions” (2007, p. 185). Masters and Houston, authors of The Varieties of Psychedelic Experience (1966) and seasoned psychedelic psychotherapists, view what they call the “Symbolic level” of consciousness in psychedelic experience as having exceptional therapeutic potential (1970, p. 335). At the Symbolic level, they say, individuals participate in mythic dramas that represent the essentials of their condition and that effect deep and sweeping personality changes (ibid.). A Jungian framework would certainly elucidate this important level of psychedelic experience. Given the circumstances I have outlined thus far, the relationship of Jung’s psychology to psychedelic experience and psychedelic psychotherapy seem to be subjects ripe for scholarly investigation. It is becoming increasingly clear to me that an investigation of Jung’s approach to the therapeutic process of integrating challenging unconscious material can yield a unique and valuable framework for understanding the nature of psychedelic experience, for guiding psychedelic psychotherapy, and for treating psychedelic-induced psychotic states. Such an investigation, by enriching the future practice of psychedelic psychotherapy, could also contribute to the field of transpersonal psychology. I can imagine, for instance, that a carefully articulated Jungian framework for integrating psychedelic experiences could become a useful element within Grof’s more comprehensive framework, just as Grof’s framework could one day find its place in an even more comprehensive therapeutic system. Bridging Jung’s approach to trauma and integration with the practice of psychedelic psychotherapy could also contribute to the
29 Scott Hill Dissertation Proposal growing effort to treat post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), within which there is a growing interest in psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy (Mithoefer, 2007). This investigation could, in addition, contribute to the field of Jungian psychology. Psychedelic experiences, like dreams, fantasies, and myths, include manifestations of the archetypal unconscious (Hill, 2005). In The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious, Jung says that he had for years investigated “the products of the unconscious in the widest sense of the word, namely dreams, fantasies, visions, and delusions of the insane” (1959, p. 183). It seems therefore that Jungian psychology today would benefit by widening the scope of unconscious material that it investigates to include the rich material manifested in psychedelic-induced images, visions, and delusions. Beyond the potential contributions to these fields, this inquiry has already proved to have great personal value. I came to California Institute of Integral Studies in 2002 with the goal of understanding as deeply as possible the life-changing and still haunting psychedelic-induced psychotic states that I experienced some forty years ago. I have written numerous papers analyzing my psychedelic experiences from a wide range of theoretical perspectives,6 and all of them have been personally valuable. I have, however, acquired especially profound insights into my experience from a Jungian perspective. Consistent with David Lukoff’s suggestion (1996, pp. 275-276), the process of articulating the archetypal dimensions of my psychedelic-induced psychotic states in a paper exploring parallels between those states and myths of death and rebirth from a Jungian perspective was a profoundly integrative process. That paper, Manifestations of the Archetypal Unconscious: Parallels in Myth and Personal Experience (Hill, 2003c), launched my extended inquiry into Jungian psychology that has become more deeply and joyously significant with each additional Jungian-related paper I have written (Hill, 2007a, 2007b, 2008). I eagerly look forward to extending this inquiry through the kind of in-depth investigation that a dissertation permits.
6 I have over the last six years studied my own psychedelic-induced psychotic states from the standpoint of Stanislav Grof’s model of the psyche, Ralph Metzner’s theories of psychedelic- induced psychospiritual transformation (including his work with shamanic and hybrid frameworks), dualistic and exultant Christian theologies, Advaita Vedanta, Jung’s theory of the archetypal unconscious, Tarnas’s archetypal astrology, and Hegel’s dialectic.
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Theoretical Perspective and Methodology As I have indicated, I plan to interpret psychedelic experience from the theoretical perspective of Jungian psychology for the purpose of constructing a tentative Jungian framework for understanding and explaining the nature and significance of psychedelic experience, for guiding research on psychedelics, and for guiding the practice of psychedelic psychotherapy and the treatment of psychedelic-induced psychotic states. My fundamental method of investigation can be characterized therefore as a Jungian interpretation of psychedelic experience, or a Jungian hermeneutics.
Hermeneutics and Hermeneutical Attitude
When I speak of hermeneutics, I mean a method of interpretation of a text or anything broadly considered as text. Text understood in a broad sense refers to anything that carries meaning, including manifestations of psychological states of mind, such as dreams (Palmer, 1969, p. 43). In my study, the subject of my interpretation will of course be psychedelic experience, or more specifically psychedelic-induced images, visions, and psychotic states. Having already looked at the nature of my own psychedelic-induced psychotic states of consciousness from a variety of theoretical perspectives,7 I have discovered that psychedelic experience can be understood quite differently when analyzed from various theoretical perspectives. Although this sounds patently obvious when stated here, the actual process of uncovering distinct aspects or properties of the same psychedelic experiences through the application of different theoretical perspectives has been revelatory for me. Given the lack of any thorough treatment of the nature of psychedelic experience from a Jungian perspective, and given the value that I have discovered of analyzing psychedelic experience from different theoretical perspectives, I have good reason to think that a Jungian interpretation of psychedelic experience will provide new and significant insights to others investigating the nature of psychedelic experience. My ongoing effort to understand the nature of psychedelic experience through the application of different theoretical perspectives is consistent with the conception of hermeneutics as an understanding that arises out of an ongoing dialogue or interaction
7 See footnote 5, p. 26.
31 Scott Hill Dissertation Proposal with a text, where again text can be understood broadly to include psychological experiences. Such an inquiry pursues a kind of truth altogether different than that defined by such criteria of scientific methodology as experimental verification and replication (Ferrer, 2002, p. 58). Such an inquiry involves a transformative engagement with one’s subject of study (ibid.) and a participation in and an openness to the meanings and truths conveyed in what one is trying to understand (Bernstein, 1983, p. 137). I do not consider all interpretations as equally valid, however. In The Hermeneutics of Postmodernity, Madison outlines a set of methodological principles (e.g., coherence, comprehensiveness, and penetration) that suggests useful criteria for evaluating the quality of an interpretation (Madison, 1988, pp. 29-35). And in Entering the Circle: Hermeneutic Investigation in Psychology, Packer and Addison outline another useful set of guidelines for evaluating an interpretation, some of which are especially appropriate for my dissertation, including an interpretation’s pragmatic value and emancipatory potential (1989, pp. 286-287). For Gadamer, “a consciousness formed by the authentic hermeneutical attitude will be receptive to origins and entirely foreign features of that which comes to it from outside its own horizons” (quoted in Bernstein, 1983, pp. 137-138). I find this an appropriate attitude for interpreting the nature and significance of psychedelic experience, especially psychedelic-induced psychotic states. This challenge is reflected in Bernstein’s statement that “the problem . . . is how to understand and do justice to something that at once strikes us as so strange and alien and yet has sufficient affinity with us that we can come to understand it” (ibid., p. 141).
Jungian Hermeneutics
Jungian hermeneutics can be characterized broadly, then, as the interpretation of the nature and significance of psychological experience from a Jungian perspective. Jung was concerned primarily with understanding and explaining the meaning of psychological experience rather than its empirical quantification (Clarke, 1992, p. 42). Despite his frequent proclamations of empiricism, that is, Jung’s whole approach to psychological life was fundamentally interpretative and explanatory, and thus hermeneutic. From his early writing on schizophrenia, Jung claimed that careful interpretation can reveal coherent meaning even in apparently absurd manifestations from
32 Scott Hill Dissertation Proposal psychotic patients (1907, par. 35; 1914a, pars. 399-412). In his Two Essays on Analytical Psychology, Jung explicitly equates what he calls his “synthetic or constructive process of interpretation” with “the ‘hermeneutic’ method” (Jung, 1966, par. 131). Jung felt that this hermeneutic method does more justice to “the almost overpowering profusion of fantastic symbolization” manifested in schizophrenia than does an analytical-reductive approach (1914a, pars. 389-390). Jung’s hermeneutic approach seeks not so much to understand how and why the psyche has come to its current psychotic condition. It assumes rather that the psyche is going through a process of becoming. “The constructive standpoint asks how, out of this present psyche, a bridge can be built into its own future. . . . The question is: What is the goal the patient tried to reach through the creation of his [delusional] system?” (ibid., pars., 399, 408). Jung encourages us, that is, to look at the individual’s delusions without prejudice and to appreciate that through them the individual is in fact attempting with all his or her might to bring something to completion (par. 410). Distinguishing the content of the individual’s delusions from his or her confusion of that content with reality, Jung maintains that such delusions are not in themselves pathological. They are subjectively valid and therefore justifiable within subjective limits (par. 412). The synthetic- constructive method, Jung says, “must follow the clues laid down by the delusional system itself” (ibid., par. 421).
Understanding and Explanation Given the centrality of understanding and explanation in my study, and given my implicit assumption that these two approaches to knowledge are complementary, I would like to discuss briefly, first, their historical separation in the philosophy of science into what Strasser characterizes as “contrasting epistemological attitudes” (1985, p. viii), and second, Jung’s use of both understanding and explanation. Traditionally, the term explanation has been reserved for the empirical sciences and associated with the formation of general laws. As Strasser says, “whenever we can subsume the individual case under a universal law, we say that we have ‘explained’ it” (ibid., p. 2). The term understanding, on the other hand, has been set apart traditionally for the humanities and has been associated with the interpretation of meaning in texts or other expressions of human life including ideas, emotions, and thoughts (ibid., pp. 4- 6;
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Clarke, 1992, pp. 42-45). Understanding human beings implies more than observation, as one would observe particles in physics, say; understanding human beings implies “grasping the meaning and significance of their words and actions” (ibid., p. 43). Understanding also implies a concern for particular persons (ibid.). Jung articulates this explicitly in a passage on knowledge versus understanding: The statistical method shows the facts in the light of the ideal average but does not give us a picture of their empirical reality. . . . The distinctive thing about real facts, however, is their individuality. . . . Hence it is not the universal and the regular that characterize the individual, but rather the unique. (1958b, p. 17)
Jung of course developed generalizations about psychic structures and processes based on his association experiments, his psychotherapeutic practice, and his own self- analysis (Fordham, 1978, p. 3), but these generalizations have not so much the character of explanatory empirical laws as a provisional attempt to understand the meanings of manifestations of the human psyche (Clarke, 1992, Chapter 3). Jung adopted both epistemological attitudes in a way that was complementary rather than contradictory. This adoption was shaped no doubt by his dual role as scientist and psychotherapist. As he continues arguing for the importance of the individual in the passage just cited, we can hear the voice of both the scientist and the psychotherapist speaking. At the same time man, as member of a species, can and must be described as a statistical unit; otherwise nothing general can be said about him. . . . This results in a universally valid anthropology or psychology, as the case may be, with an abstract picture of man as an average unit from which all individual features have been removed. But it is precisely these features which are of paramount importance for understanding man. If I want to understand an individual human being, I must lay aside all scientific knowledge of the average man. (1958b, p. 18)
The complexity and nuance of Jung’s methodology is consistent with the contemporary hermeneutic attitude reflected in Strasser’s concept of the “spiral of understanding,” which rejects an epistemological dichotomy between understanding and explanation and sees them in a dialectical relationship, wherein understanding interacts with explanation to refine, enrich, and broaden knowledge. (1985, pp. 31-33).
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Three Basic Elements of This Investigation I have said that this study investigates the concepts and principles in Jung’s psychology that are most relevant to elucidating the fundamental nature of psychedelic experience. I would now like to clarify the way in which my hermeneutic analysis relates to this investigation by outlining its three basic elements. My investigation is based primarily on authoritative statements from relevant literature about the nature of psychedelic experience. Here are two very abbreviated examples of the kind of definitions, descriptions, and characterizations I use: In Psychedelic Drugs Reconsidered, Grinspoon and Bakalar (1997) state that a psychedelic drug “more or less reliably produces thought, mood, and perceptual changes otherwise rarely experienced except in dreams, contemplative and religious exaltation, flashes of vivid involuntary memory, and acute psychoses” (p. 9). And in LSD Psychotherapy, Grof (1994) characterizes psychedelics as “nonspecific catalysts and amplifiers of the psyche” (p. 11). To support and illustrate the authoritative statements, which are inevitably rather abstract, I use occasional case-study accounts of specific psychedelic experiences by researchers and therapists working with individuals who have used psychedelic substances. I also use occasional first-person accounts by individuals who have used psychedelic substances themselves. And, finally, I interpret and discuss the authoritative statements and descriptive accounts in terms of Jung's psychology. This hermeneutic element naturally makes up the major portion of this investigation. I do not mean to suggest that these three elements appear in the regular order I have outlined here, or that all parts of this investigation contain all three elements. I only want to clarify the underlying structure of this investigation: a Jungian interpretation of authoritative statements and descriptive accounts regarding psychedelic experience.
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Chapter Breakdown Following a tentative outline of my dissertation’s contents, I explain here my overall plan for treating the nature of psychedelic experience and psychedelic-induced psychotic states from a Jungian perspective. I end this section with a tentative timeline.
Tentative Outline
Chapter One. Introduction: Jung and Psychedelics Early Reference to Jung’s Psychology in the Psychedelic Literature Contemporary References to Jung’s Psychology in the Psychedelic Literature Jung and Jungians on Psychedelic Experience The Need for a Jungian Framework
Chapter Two. Literature Review Psychedelics and Trauma Psychedelic-Induced Trauma Psychedelic Therapy as Treatment for Past Trauma Psychedelics and Psychosis Psychedelics as Psychosis-Inducing Substances Psychedelic-Induced Psychotic States and Schizophrenia Compared The Psychotomimetic Model: Criticized and Reconsidered Psychedelics, Psychosis, and Trauma: The Transformative Potential The Transformative Potential of Psychedelic Experience in General The Transformative Potential of Psychedelic-Induced Psychotic States Views of Grof, Perry, Lukoff, Metzner, and Others Psychedelic Psychotherapy The Psycholytic and Psychedelic Models Therapeutic Frameworks
Chapter Three. Fundamental Jungian Concepts Relevant to Explaining the Nature and Significance of Psychedelic Experience Consciousness and the Collective, or Archetypal, Unconscious Archetypes and Their Manifestation Archetype of the Self The Numinosum
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Psychological Rebirth Transformation and Individuation The Interpretation of Dreams and Other Products of the Unconscious
Chapter Four. Jung’s General Explanation of the Nature of Psychedelic Experience Lowering of the Threshold of Consciousness Enriched Apperception and the Limits of Integration Psychedelic Experience and Schizophrenia Compared The Phenomenology of the Complex
Chapter Five. The Nature of Psychedelic-Induced Psychotic States Trauma in Jung’s Psychology Kalsched’s Theory of Trauma and the Self’s Archetypal Defenses Trauma and Dissociation in Jung’s Psychology Trauma and Jung’s Complex Theory The Affective Foundation of Jung’s Psychology Jung’s Notion of Possession by Complexes The Shadow in Jung’s Psychology Jung’s Concept of the Shadow Personal and Archetypal Levels of the Shadow The Overwhelmingly Numinous Nature of the Archetypes Resistance to and Projection of the Shadow The Self’s Defense Against Overwhelming Affect Psychosis in Jung’s Psychology Jung’s Focus on Schizophrenic Forms of Psychosis Commonalities Between Schizophrenia and Other Conditions Neurosis, Latent Psychosis, and Manifest Psychosis Abaissement du Niveau Mental and Psychedelic-Induced Psychosis The Nature of Adverse Psychological Reactions to Psychedelics Psychedelic-Induced Psychotic States
Chapter Six. Trauma, Shadow, and Psychosis: The Transformative Potential The Healing Potential of Psychotic Experiences The Painful Passage Through the Shadow Towards Wholeness
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Treating Trauma: Integration versus Abreaction Trauma and Abreaction Defined by Jung Jung on the Therapeutic Value of Abreaction Jung’s and Grof’s Views Compared Drawing From Both Grof and Jung
Chapter Seven. Jung’s Approach to the Therapeutic Process of Integration The Transcendent Function Active Imagination and Other Techniques
Chapter Eight. Jungian Psychotherapy and Psychedelic Psychotherapy The Relationship Between Analyst and Analysand The Goal of Individuation
Chapter Nine. Treatment Implications: A Jungian Approach to Psychedelic-Induced Psychotic States and Psychedelic Psychotherapy
Discussion After introducing the current relationship of Jung and Jungian psychology to psychedelics, my literature review will lay a foundation for my Jungian treatment of psychedelic experience by giving an overview of fundamental concepts and issues in the field of psychedelic studies. I intend to focus almost exclusively on the psychedelic literature in the literature review, leaving my Jungian interpretation of psychedelic experience to the remaining parts of my dissertation. I will start my Jungian interpretation by introducing central Jungian concepts and principles that are fundamental to understanding the nature and significance of psychedelic experience from a Jungian perspective. Then, after investigating Jung’s conception of psychedelic experience in general, I will conduct an in-depth investigation of Jungian concepts and principles related to trauma, shadow, and psychosis that elucidate the nature of psychedelic-induced psychotic states. The following part on the transformative potential of trauma, shadow, and psychosis, including an in-depth treatment of integration and the transcendent function, will lead to the final two parts of my dissertation, both of which will discuss the implications of a Jungian approach to psychotherapy for the treatment of psychedelic-induced psychotic states and for psychedelic psychotherapy (Chapter Eight, generally, and Chapter Nine, specifically).
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Tentative Timeline Although this timeline is possible given the research and writing I have already completed, it assumes rather ideal conditions and may therefore need to be modified.
September 15, 2008 – Proposal read by committee chair. September 20, 2008 – Proposal circulated to other committee members. November 1, 2008 – Student receives committee approval for proposal. November 15, 2008 – First three chapters circulated to committee. December 1, 2008 – Second three chapters circulated to committee. January 1, 2009 – Last three chapters circulated to committee. February 20, 2009 – Oral defense. March 20, 2009 – Student receives approval from chair. Spring 2009 – Student graduates.
Considering the real possibility that I am not able to meet these rather ideal deadlines, I will adopt this more realistic timeline, which essentially means that I will be graduating in the summer instead of the spring of 2009.
November 15, 2008 – First two chapters circulated to committee. December 1, 2008 – Third and forth chapters circulated to committee. January 1, 2009 – Fifth thru seventh chapters circulated to committee. February 1, 2009 _ Eighth and ninths chapters circulated to committee. March 15, 2009 _ Final draft circulated to committee. May 1, 2009 – Oral defense. June 30, 2009 – Student receives approval from chair. Summer 2009 – Student graduates.
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Research Bibliography In addition to sources listed in References, below (p. 37), and the sources I used in my comprehensive exam on psychedelics, psychosis, and transformation (Hill, 2006),8 I will focus my investigation into Jungian psychology on the following:
Primary Sources Although I will surely find useful material throughout Jung’s publications, I anticipate focusing my investigation into Jung’s psychology on the following sources.
From Jung’s Collected Works, Bollingen Series XX Vol. 3, The Psychogenesis of Mental Disease Vol. 4, Psychological Types (especially, chapters 2, 5, 6, 10, and 11) Vol. 7, Two Essays on Analytical Psychology Vol. 8, The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche Vol. 9, Part I, The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious Vol. 16, The Practice of Psychotherapy Other Primary Sources Jung, C. (1963). Memories, Dreams, Reflections. New York: Vintage Books. Jung, C. & von Franz, M.-L. (Eds.). (1964). Man and His Symbols. Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Co.
Secondary Jungian Sources Samuels suggests that Jung needs the Jungians that followed him as much as they need him because sometimes they reach compatible conclusions in a more coherent or better documented way (1986, p. 1). Although I will draw chiefly from Jung’s primary sources, I will also use a variety of secondary Jungian sources, including the following.
Campbell, J. (Ed.). (1971). The Portable Jung. New York: Penguin. Chodorow, J. (Ed.). (1997). Jung on Active Imagination. Princeton: Princeton University. Clarke, J. (1992). In Search of Jung: Historical and Philosophical Enquiries. New York: Routledge.
8 My five-page reference list for this paper is available for examination upon request.
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Corbett, L. (1996). The Religious Function of the Psyche. New York: Brunner- Routledge. Edinger, E. (1987). The Christian Archetype: A Jungian Commentary on the Life of Christ. Toronto, Canada: Inner City Books. Edinger, E. (1992). Ego and Archetype: Individuation and the Religious Function of the Psyche. Boston: Shambhala Publications. Edinger, E. (1999). Archetype of the Apocalypse: A Jungian Study of the Book of Revelation. Chicago: Open Court. Henderson, J. (1990). Shadow and Self: Selected Papers in Analytical Psychology. Wilmette, IL: Chiron Publications. Kalsched, D. (1996). The Inner World of Trauma: Archetypal Defenses of the Personal Spirit. New York: Routledge. Kelly, S. (1996). Individuation and the Absolute: Hegel, Jung, and the Path Toward Wholeness. New York: Paulist Press. Mattoon, M.A. (Ed.). (1993). The Transcendent Function: Individual and Collective Aspects (Proceedings of the Twelfth International Congress for Analytical Psychology, August 23-28, 1992). Einsiedeln, Switzerland: Daiomon Verlag. Miller, J. (2004). The Transcendent Function: Jung’s Model of Psychological Growth through Dialogue with the Unconscious. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. Perry, J. (1974). The Far Side of Madness. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Perry, J. (1976). Roots of Renewal in Myth and Madness: The Meaning of Psychotic Episodes. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Perry, J. (1987). The Self in Psychotic Process: Its Symbolization in Schizophrenia. Dallas: Spring. Perry, J. (1999). Trials of the Visionary Mind: Spiritual Emergency and the Renewal Process. Albany: State University of New York Press. Samuels, A. (1986). Jung and the Post-Jungians. Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Samuels, A., Shorter, B., & Plaut, F. (1986). A Critical Dictionary of Jungian Analysis. New York: Routledge. von Franz, M.-L. (1980). Projection and Re-collection in Jungian Psychology: Reflections of the Soul. La Salle, IL: Open Court Publishing. von Franz, M.-L. (1993). Psychotherapy. Boston: Shambhala Publications. Whitmont, E. (1979). The Symbolic Quest. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Zweig, C. & Abrams, J. (Eds.). (1991). Meeting the Shadow: The Hidden Power of the Dark Side of Human Nature. New York: J. P. Tarcher/Putnam.
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References
Aaronson, B. & Osmond, H. (Eds.) (1970). Psychedelics: The uses and implications of hallucinogenic drugs. Garden City, NY: Anchor Books.
Abramson, H. (1967). Introduction. In H. Abramson (Ed.), The use of LSD in psychotherapy and alcoholism (pp. vii-xi). New York: Bobbs-Merrill.
Adler. G. & Jung, A.J. (Eds.). (1975). Letters of C.G. Jung. Vol. 2. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Albert, D. (1993). Event horizons of the psyche: Synchronicity, psychedelics, and the metaphysics of consciousness. Dissertation Abstracts International, A 54 (07), p. 2607, Jan 1994. (UMI No. 9332486)
Bastiaans, J. (1983). Mental liberation facilitated by the use of hallucinogenic drugs. In L. Grinspoon & J. Bakalar (Eds.), Psychedelic reflections (pp. 143-152). New York: Human Sciences Press.
Bernstein, R.J. (1983). Beyond objectivism and relativism: Science, hermeneutics, and praxis. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press
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Bravo, G. & Grob, C. (1996b). Psychedelics and transpersonal psychiatry. In B. Scotton, A. Chinen, & J. Battista (Eds.), Textbook of transpersonal psychiatry and psychology (pp. 176-185). New York: Basic Books.
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Caldwell, W. (1969). LSD psychotherapy: An exploration of psychedelic and psycholytic therapy. New York: Grove Press.
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Cohen, S. (1967). The beyond within: The LSD story. New York: Atheneum.
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Doblin, R. (2001). Pahnk’s good Friday experiment: A long-term follow-up and methodological critique. In Roberts, T. (Ed), Psychoactive sacramentals: Essays on entheogens and religion (pp. 70-79). San Francisco: Council on Spiritual Practices.
Dombrowe, C. (2005). Touched by spirit: A heuristic study of healing experiences in peyote ceremonies. Dissertation Abstracts International, B 66 (05), p. 2815. California Institute of Integral Studies.
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Fischman, L. (1983). Dreams, hallucinogenic drug states, and schizophrenia: A psychological and biological comparison. Schizophrenia Bulletin, 9, 73-94.
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Fordham, M. (1963). Analytic observations on patients using hallucinogenic drugs. In R. Crocket, R. Sandison, & A. Walk (Eds.). Hallucinogenic drugs and their psychotherapeutic use (pp. 125-130). Springfield, IL: C.C. Thomas.
Fordham, M. (1978). Jungian psychotherapy: A study in analytical psychology. New York: John Wiley & Sons.
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Goldsmith, N. (2007). The ten lessons of psychedelic psychotherapy, rediscovered. In M. Winkelman & T. Roberts (Eds.), Psychedelic medicines: New evidence for hallucinogenic substances as treatments (Vol. 2, pp. 107-141). Westport, CT: Praeger. Grinspoon, L. & Bakalar, J. (1997). Psychedelic drugs reconsidered. New York: The Lindesmith Center.
Grob, C. (Ed.). ( 2002a). Hallucinogens: A reader. New York: J. P. Tarcher/Putnam.
Grob, C. (2002b). Psychiatric research with hallucinogens: What have we learned? In C. Grob (Ed.) Hallucinogens: A reader (pp. 263-291). New York: J. P. Tarcher/Putnam.
Grof, S. (Ed.) (1884). Ancient wisdom and modern science. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. Grof, S. (1985). Beyond the brain: Birth, death and transcendence in psychotherapy. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.
Grof, S. (1994). LSD psychotherapy: Exploring the frontiers of the hidden mind. Alameda, CA: Hunter House Inc.
Grof, S. & Grof, C. (Eds.). (1989). Spiritual emergency: When personal transformation becomes a crisis. Los Angles: Jeremy P. Tarcher/Putnam.
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Heuser, J. (2006). Ayahuasca entity visitations: A thematic analysis of Internet-reported encounters. Dissertation Abstracts International, B 67 (05), Nov 2006. (UMI No. 3218522)
Hill, S. (2002a). Ancient knowledge: Loss and remembrance: A personal reflection on the rise of Christian transcendental monotheism and the suppression of pre-Christian spirituality. Unpublished manuscript.
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Hill, S. (2002b). Exultant Christianity: In search of the compassionate and immanent divine in Christianity. Unpublished manuscript.
Hill, S. (2003a). Personal psychedelic experiences considered in the light of the eastern containing myth. Unpublished manuscript.
Hill, S. (2003b). Crossing the bridge: Toward healing an unresolved LSD experience. Unpublished manuscript.
Hill, S. (2003c). Manifestations of the archetypal unconscious: Parallels in myth and personal experience. Unpublished manuscript.
Hill, S. (2005). In divine conflict: A vision of redemption through death as a manifestation of the Saturn-Neptune archetypal complex. Unpublished manuscript.
Hill, S. (2006). Psychedelics, psychosis, and transformation. Unpublished manuscript.
Hill, S. (2007a). Dreaming awake: Insanity and transformation in Hegel’s dialectic. Unpublished manuscript.
Hill, S. (2007b). Jungian hermeneutics: A critical analysis. Unpublished manuscript.
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