“To learn healing knowledge”: Philosophy,psychedelic studies and transformation

“Philosophical learning” may be summarised in Sobiecki’s fitting catchphrase “to learn healing knowledge”. This catchphrase is taken from an article on the use of psychoactive plants among southern African diviners. In the spirit of this link, I aim to challenge contemporary negative attitudes to the topic of psychedelics, and argue that there are good reasons for philosophers to pay attention to the role that the psychedelic experience can play in promoting philosophical perception. I argue first that the results of some contemporary studies affirm the benefits of psychedelic use in an “orchestrated guided experience”. Secondly, I argue that the aims of such “orchestrated guided experiences” are consonant with the nature of philosophical learning. Philosophy, understood as a learning practice, has a strong historical precedent and ties to contemporary indigenous cultural practices. Here I cite research into the use of psychedelics and the Eleusinian Mysteries at the origin of Western philosophy. Numerous cultures, ancient and contemporary, venerate psychoactive substances as agents of learning, healing, and transformation. Thus, contemporary mainstream philosophy may have opportunities to learn, or relearn, from southern African indigenous cultural practices. Considering the positive light in which the topic of psychedelics will be painted, I will conclude by suggesting that psychedelics have the potential to play an important role in fostering the deeply transformative “philosophical learning” that is the condition for positive social change. This makes the topic of psychedelics worthy of philosophical reflection.     

Cultural complex,death anxiety and individuation during times of populism: a dialogue between Jungian psychology and social psychology

A trend towards political polarization and radicalization is observable in many countries across the world. The rise of populist movements and an increasingly heated polarized discourse in the face of mounting environmental and cultural challenges calls for a multifaceted psychological engagement with these phenomena. C.G. Jung’s vision of individuation remains crucial for understanding, and possibly mitigating, developments towards radicalization and division within and between cultures. This paper considers classic and contemporary depth psychological ideas regarding individuation, shadow work and cultural complexes, and applies these ideas to current socio-political developments. To further elucidate, Jungian thought is brought into conversation with the findings of a body of literature within social psychology called Terror Management Theory (TMT) which points to unconscious death anxiety as amplifying a sense of separation and otherness, as well as judgment and conflict between individuals and groups. This paper aims to deepen the understanding of current cultural polarization phenomena as well as to collective healing and growth by synthesizing ideas from Jung and TMT research, and to rekindle the fire of individuation as a counter to the trend of polarization, alienation and conflict.     

Seeking the Psilocybiome: Psychedelics meet the microbiota-gut-brain axis

Moving towards a systems psychiatry paradigm embraces the inherent complex interactions across all levels from micro to macro and necessitates an integrated approach to treatment. Cortical 5-HT_2A receptors are key primary targets for the effects of serotonergic psychedelics. However, the therapeutic mechanisms underlying psychedelic therapy are complex and traverse molecular, cellular, and network levels, under the influence of biofeedback signals from the periphery and the environment. At the interface between the individual and the environment, the gut microbiome, via the gut-brain axis, plays an important role in the unconscious parallel processing systems regulating host neurophysiology. While psychedelic and microbial signalling systems operate over different timescales, the microbiota-gut-brain (MGB) axis, as a convergence hub between multiple biofeedback systems may play a role in the preparatory phase, the acute administration phase, and the integration phase of psychedelic therapy. In keeping with an interconnected systems-based approach, this review will discuss the gut microbiome and mycobiome and pathways of the MGB axis, and then explore the potential interaction between psychedelic therapy and the MGB axis and how this might influence mechanism of action and treatment response. Finally, we will discuss the possible implications for a precision medicine-based psychedelic therapy paradigm.     

APPLIED MYSTICISM: A DRUG‐ENABLED VISIONARY EXPERIENCE AGAINST MORAL BLINDNESS

Intellectuals such as William James and Aldous Huxley have thought it possible to develop a technique to apply to this world the mystical‐type insights gained during drug‐enabled experiences. Particularly, Huxley claimed that the visionary experience triggered by psychedelics could help us rethink our relationship with technology and promote a much‐needed cultural change. In this article, we explore this hypothesis. To do so, we build a philosophical framework based on Günther Anders's philosophy of technique, presenting human beings as morally blind when facing technological development. Mystical experiences are then proposed as a means to improve our moral faculties—and psychedelic drugs as tools to enable them. We finally explore the empirical feasibility of such a hypothesis by thoroughly reviewing the recent scientific literature on the nature of the psychedelic experience, concluding that the long‐term effects in the personality domain openness and in nature relatedness point to the emergence of a morally improved agent, thus providing substance to an application of mysticism.     

A response to William Meredith-Owen’s ‘Alchemical dragons: Winnicott’s reaching towards the objective psyche’

This paper was presented as a response to Meredith-Owen’s paper at the inaugural joint conference of The Society of Analytical Psychology and the West Midlands Institute of Psychotherapy in autumn 2020. The author considers the constraints on the personal mother’s capacity to facilitate the integration of both the shadow and the unrepressed unconscious. Such a difficult task requires the involvement of an enabling cultural matrix mediated by socio-political systems and structures. The improvement of this cultural matrix relies on alchemical-like processes which would help understanding develop beyond one’s own point of view.     

George Floyd’s death and COVID-19: inflection points in the Anthropocene Era?

George Floyd’s death, the COVID-19 pandemic and climate change are on a continuum from the immediate shock of viewing a video-recorded murder, to millions dying worldwide from disease, to deaths related to climate change accumulating over a millennium. They participate in the powerful archetypes of death and inequality. ‘Increase’, Hexagram 42 in the I Ching, archetypically addresses inequalities at all levels – racial, economic, political and the profound imbalance between humans and the environment. Floyd’s death highlights the consequences of systemic racism and income inequalities. The pandemic as ‘nature’s revenge’ hits minority populations harder due to underlying health conditions resulting from poverty and greater exposure to the virus in the workplace. President Trump as Trickster showed Americans their shadow and his response to the pandemic amplified its severity. The pandemic has shocked our social, political and economic systems and paused our species rush into environmental disasters at many levels. The disruptions present opportunities for reflection, experimentation and developing new systems as old forms are challenged. The ecological dimensions of Jung’s concepts emphasize interconnectedness at all levels and the paradigm shift he called a ‘new age’ provides a framework for altering the course of the Anthropocene Era.     

The philosophy of self-care,individuation and psychodrama: exploring creative means to encountering the “unknown other” in self

ABSTRACT

In this article I investigate creative means to encounter otherness in oneself as a prerequisite for intercultural education. Firstly, I look at ancient Greek philosophy and the concept of self-care. Secondly, I draw from C. G. Jung’s individuation as a process of incorporating shadow parts in the self and thirdly I explore psychodramatic methods. The article is concluded with the example of a concrete application of the “Inner Team” model in a workshop on intercultural competence for caregivers in the context of elderly care.     

The epistemic innocence of psychedelic states

One recent development in epistemology, the philosophical study of knowledge, is the notion of ‘epistemic innocence’ introduced by Bortolotti and colleagues. This concept expresses the idea that certain suboptimal cognitive processes may nonetheless have epistemic (knowledge-related) benefits. The idea that delusion or confabulation may have psychological benefits is familiar enough. What is novel and interesting is the idea that such conditions may also yield significant and otherwise unavailable epistemic benefits. I apply the notion of epistemic innocence to research on the transformative potential of psychedelic drugs. The popular epithet ‘hallucinogen’ exemplifies a view of these substances as fundamentally epistemically detrimental. I argue that the picture is more complicated and that some psychedelic states can be epistemically innocent. This conclusion is highly relevant to policy debates about psychedelic therapy. Moreover, analysing the case of psychedelics can shed further light on the concept of epistemic innocence itself.     

Stigma towards psychosis: Cross‐cultural differences in prejudice,stereotypes, and discrimination in White British and South Asians

Public stigma towards people with mental health problems has been demonstrated in Western societies. Little is known about non‐Western cultures and whether cultures differ in their perceptions of people with mental health problems. Aim of this study was to examine cultural differences in prejudice, stereotypes, and discrimination towards people with psychosis. Participants were from White British and South Asian backgrounds (N = 128, aged 16–20 years) recruited from two schools and colleges in the United Kingdom. They completed a cross‐sectional survey on affective, cognitive, and behavioural dimensions of stigma. Results revealed significant cultural differences on all three stigma dimensions. South Asians attributed higher anger (prejudice) and dangerousness (stereotypes) to people with psychosis than White British. They also reported lower willingness to help, greater avoidance, and higher endorsement of segregation (discrimination). The effects of ethnic group on helping intentions, avoidance, and segregation endorsement were mediated by anger and by dangerousness. Understanding cultural differences in stigma towards psychosis will be important for designing stigma interventions as well as treatments for people with different cultural backgrounds.     

民族接触减弱民族本质论：文化认同与文化相似性的中介作用

采用问卷法,以911名少数民族和汉族大学生为被试,探讨了民族接触减弱民族本质论及其机制问题。研究1检验了民族接触与民族本质论、民族交往态度的关系,结果表明,少数民族被试的民族接触与民族本质论存在显著负相关,汉族被试存在负相关但不显著;研究2检验了少数民族被试的本民族文化认同和与汉族文化的相似性感知在民族接触和民族本质论之间的中介作用。结果表明,文化认同和文化相似性完全中介了民族接触和民族本质论之间的负相关。文章认为民族接触可以通过增加民族之间文化相似性感知、降低内群体的文化认同而减弱民族本质论信念。最后讨论了本研究在理论和实践方面的贡献,以及存在的局限性。     

When left hands touch: shadow vows and Jung’s quaternity

Is there a connection between the exchange of vows and the fighting and suffering of couples that are unique to the institution of marriage? This essay introduces the concept of Shadow Vows, the unacknowledged assumptions, agreements, and obligations each partner brings to the relationship, which the authors believe are often responsible for longstanding marital discord and strife. The authors ground the existence of shadow vows in Jung’s quaternity, alchemy, typology, archetypal theory, and depth approaches to couple therapy. The essay concludes with a list of themes indicative of shadow vow enactments in clinical work with couples.     

Shifting shadows: shaping dynamics in the cultural unconscious

Jung has suggested that wars, social upheavals and religions are 'but the superficial symptoms of a secret psychic attitude unknown even to the individual himself, and transmitted by no historian ...' (Jung 1964, para. 315; emphasis author's). With a focus on South Africa and some dream material, I explore this idea with particular emphasis on the cultural unconscious and the emerging theory of cultural complexes. Different cultures demand the repression of different aspects of the self and have different ways of actualizing a moral code. These repressions are part of what make up a dynamic and shifting cultural complex which inevitably plays a part in historical change. In turn, historical change plays its part in shifting these dynamics. In the analytic setting via the transference and countertransference, we are familiar with what is being repressed in relation to shadow dynamics, complexes and obsolete defences. Such dynamics relate to themes of boundary, identity and otherness which, in turn, reach back to early infantile strivings as well as forward in the service of unfolding. Central to this dynamic is the absorption of cultural attitudes--including that which must be repressed, allowed in or defended against. Major political shifts--historical change--inevitably affect cultural dynamics, 'secret psychic attitude(s)' and shifting shadows.     

Toward a Critical Global Psychoanalysis

In light of the contemporary shift away from the universalizing of the Eurocentric perspective, brought into focus with the advent of globalization, it may be useful to consider reorienting traditional psychoanalytic assumptions about human nature to those that are more appropriate to the recognition of a culturally pluralistic world. The author argues that ego psychology originated in the Western Enlightenment's emphasis on liberal individualism, which has limited its applicability across races, classes, and cultures. Relational theories, in their capacity to include the examination of the socially constructed dimensions of the analytic dyad (including race, class, gender, ethnicity, and sexual orientation), offer crucial theoretical and clinical possibilities, lacking in traditional psychoanalysis, that may help analysts to address some of the important cultural sources of psychological suffering. In the relational view expressed here, the unconscious—as made manifest in everyday life and in the transference and countertransference of the analytic situation—is reformulated to include social and cultural influences.     

Assessing “Western” Mindfulness Among Thai Theravāda Buddhist Monks

Mindfulness has its roots in Eastern contemplative traditions and is rapidly gaining popularity in Western psychology. However, questions remain regarding the validity of Western operationalizations of mindfulness. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to assess the applicability of several Western mindfulness measures among a sample of Thai Theravāda Buddhist monks. Twenty-four monks recruited from Buddhist temples in Thailand participated in the study. The monks evinced similar associations between mindfulness and related variables as American validation study samples did, and on two facets of mindfulness the monks’ mean scores were greater than an American college student sample. However, the American sample endorsed significantly higher scores on three other facets of mindfulness. These results raise concerns about whether these scales are measuring mindfulness as it is conceptualized in a Buddhist context. Future research with larger samples is needed to further assess the cultural validity and measurement equivalence of Western mindfulness measures across cultural groups.     

Caught between cultures: cultural norms in Jungian psychodynamic process

Abstract: In our increasingly mobile world, more of us are caught between cultures rather than in one culture. We straddle different ethnic, racial, political, geographical, and religious groups, forced into awareness of the precarious nature of our self‐definition, involuntarily gazing at the constructed nature of our cultural norms, unable to avoid reckoning with the choices of which collective to honour. The impossibility of separating individual from collective is foundational to work as Jungian practitioners, but a paradox of individuation is becoming free of the control of collective norms while simultaneously living within those very norms. In such a conflict it becomes easy to overlook the fact that when the norms we have incorporated into ourselves are from cultures vastly different from the one in which we live, the cacophony can be overwhelming. In this paper, I will draw from postmodern theorists such as Derrida, Foucault and Irigaray in an effort to re‐imagine the role of culture in psychodynamic process. The case of a Muslim Iranian man working with a Christian American woman analyst will be used to explore the complexity of a multitude of cultural norms present in the consulting room.     

Enhancing the Responsiveness of Family-Based CBT Through Culturally Informed Case Conceptualization and Treatment Planning

Family-based CBT has been shown to be effective in controlled settings for an array of youth mental health difficulties, yet disparities in treatment engagement and outcomes across culturally diverse groups remain. In practice, cultural minority families are less likely to reap the demonstrated benefits of supported programs. Although there have been tremendous advances in case conceptualization, leading models have largely ignored cultural factors, contributing to observed disparities. The present paper reviews recent advances in science-informed case conceptualization and highlights how such advances nonetheless have failed to provide guidance on systematically incorporating cultural formulation into assessment and treatment planning. We then build upon Christon et al. (2015) useful 5-stage model of science-based case conceptualization in an effort to move the field toward culturally informed case conceptualization. We highlight how leveraging cultural assessment—such as with the use of the Cultural Formulation Interview (CFI)—can facilitate the incorporation of cultural factors into each of the five stages of science-based case conceptualization. A case example is utilized to illustrate key opportunities for strategically incorporating relevant information gleaned from the CFI into culturally responsive care with youth and families.     

Healing cultural trauma and its application to the Router programme

This paper explores the issue of cultural trauma, which is an area of concern in psychology generally and has emerged as one within the International Association for Analytical Psychology’s Router training programme. A summary of responses to the issues of cultural trauma and complexes (alongside cultural differences) within analytical psychology are presented, followed by an overview of findings from the IAAP’s evaluation of the Router training programme. These findings are then aligned with contemporary sociological research. The significant issues involved in healing cultural trauma seem to be ‘working through’, as well as the place of imagination, dreamwork, symbolism and metaphor. Research in Poland has specifically highlighted the importance of good governance, economic vitality, personal and social capital (as in education and social participation), a meaning system, certain external contingencies, channels of mobility and ritualism.     

Encountering the shadow in rites of passage: a study in activations

Jung's concept of the shadow is explored in this paper through his writings on its realization and assimilation in which he says the shadow may be experienced as the regressed and denied 'other self' in each individual. However, this is not the whole picture, and he also points to the fact that the shadow contains more than something merely negative. While in no way treating them as 'patients', the paper will also touch on the experience of the anthropologist, Bronislaw Malinowski, and the writer, Joseph Conrad, in their personal encounters with the shadow. All three encountered the shadow whilst going through rites of passage of their own and each owes much to the Romantic Movement. In this context, attention is directed to the writings of the philosopher and theologian, Johann Gottfried von Herder, who discovered a deeper understanding of his destiny in the course of a sea voyage.