“ A cognitive perspective on spirituality - with a little help from psychosis"

1. “A cognitive perspective on spirituality - with a little help from psychosis" Isabel Clarke Consultant Clinical Psychologist

2. Some Questions • Why do spiritual/religious concerns persist in the face of the dominance of science? • Why is there such a religious flavour and preoccupation to much "psychotic" talk? • Where does the sense of unshakeable conviction come from that we find both in delusional ideas, and in religious/spiritual thinking – conviction that, in extreme cases, leads both groups to acts of violence etc. that are otherwise out of character for the individual?

4. Two Ideas • The apparent “two realities”; “higher and lower consciousnesses” etc. is the result of properties of human perception and information processing – not the world out there! • There is a universal process, found in individuals, groups and societies, starting with a state of boundariless euphoria and ending in paranoia • This gives us a ‘normalising’ way of understanding psychosis as well as a richer but humbler perspective on spirituality.

5. Putting Psychosis and Spirituality together: what is the evidence? • Schizotypy – a diminsion of experience: Gordon Claridge. • Mike Jackson’s research on the overlap between psychotic and spiritual experience. • Emmanuelle Peter’s research on New Religious Movements. • Wider sources of evidence – e.g.Cross cultural perspectives; anthropology.

6. Religious experience, spirituality and psychosis: a little reorganisation. Instead of psychosis and spirituality, I propose two ways of operating in the world: Two modes of experiencing: • The everyday • The transliminal Both of these are available to all human beings. Both are incomplete.

7. Ordinary Clear limits Access to full memory and learning Precise meanings available Separation between people Clear sense of self Emotions moderated and grounded Numinous Unbounded Access to ordinary knowledge/memory is patchy. Connections abound - or all is meaningless Self: lost in the whole or supremely important Emotions: swing between extremes or absent The Everyday TheTransliminal

8. Looking at this cognitively • Two complementary approaches • Kelly’s Personal Construct Theory • Interacting Cognitive Subsystems (Teasdale and Barnard).

9. Constructs • Are based on past experience/memory • New experience is filtered through our constructs • They colour and help to define our world • Each person’s construct system is unique to them.

10. Transliminal Experience = operating Beyond the Construct System • No means of anticipating or discriminating • A state without boundaries • Both/and - two contradictory things can be simultaneously valid

11. Moving beyond the constructs • Is hard for most • but not for others - cf. Schizotypy • Is often mediated by change in state of arousal/consciousness - e.g. mind altering spiritual practices or drugs. • It can be a response to crisis or impasse

12. Beyond Constructs and Boundaries • Liberating; ecstatic; one with the universe • BUT • Mind is no longer private • Open to any influence or “insertion” • Loss of the construct “safe/dangerous” - danger can come from anywhere. • The boundary between inner and outer is lost.

13. Introducing Interacting Cognitive Subsystems (Teasdale & Barnard 1993). • Interacting Cognitive Subsystems provides • An information processing model of cognition • Developed through extensive research into memory and limitations on processing. • A way into understanding the “Head/Heart split in people.

14. Interacting Cognitive Subsystems. Body State subsystem Implicational subsystem Auditory ss. Implicational Memory Visual ss. Verbal ss. Propositional subsystem Propositional Memory

15. Important Features of this model • Our subjective experience is the result of two overall meaning making systems interacting – neither is in control. • Each has a different character, corresponding to “head” and “heart”. • The IMPLICATIONAL Subsystem (which I will also call RELATIONAL) manages emotion – and therefore relationship. • The verbal, logical, PROPOSITIONAL ss. gives us our sense of individual self.

16. A challenging model of the mind. • The mind is simultaneously individual, and reaches beyond the individual, when the relational ss. is dominant. • This happens at high and at low arousal. • There is a constant balancing act between logic and emotion – human fallibility • Mindfulness is a useful technique to manage that balance.

17. More about the relational mode of being • In our relational mode we are part of the whole – and open to that which is beyond ourselves • We are defined by all our relationships – they are a part of us • This includes relationship with that which is deepest and furthest – which is beyond our naming capacity, but is sometimes called God, Goddess, Spirit etc. • Relationship is something we experience – so it can be beyond propositional knowledge – we can feel more than we know.

18. Web of Relationships In Rel. with earth: non humans etc. In Rel. with wider group etc. primary care-giver Self as experienced in relationship with primary caregiver Sense of value comes from rel. with the spiritual

19. Two Ways of Knowing • Good everyday functioning = good communication between implicational/relational and propositional • At high and at low arousal, the relational ss becomes dominant • This gives us a different quality of experience – one that is both sought and shunned.

20. Implicational Subsystem concerns • Meaning and meaningfulness • The self; threat and value • Intense, extreme feelings (all or nothing) • Loss of fine discrimination and boundaries (the domain of the propositional) • This gives us the quality of experience I will call the “transliminal”

21. I suggest • Both ways of encountering reality are equally valid • Both are intrinsically incomplete • Human beings have always honoured the transliminal • Made space for the sacred.

22. Advantages of this model • It clarifies the characteristics of the transliminal; • both/and, not either/or • paradox • numinosity • It helps to explain common psychotic experiences, such as: • thought insertion • distortions in the sense of selfIt brings psychosis into the realm of universal human experience • It brings psychosis into the realm of universal human experience • It enables us to take experience and its consequences at face value without judging • It provides a model to help people to learn to manage the threshold; to be able to pass across and back and know which side they are on.

23. Web addresses • www.SpiritualCrisisNetwork.org.uk • www.scispirit.com/Psychosis_Spirituality/