Treatment: Types of Spiritual Emergency
MYSTICAL OR UNITIVE EXPERIENCE
Mystical Experience and Psychopathology
Definitional Issues
Incidence of Mystical Experiences
Case Illustration
Resources
Mystical Experience and Psychopathology
The mental health system has tended to view mystical experiences as evidence of psychopathology. This view was promoted by Freud (1959) in Civilization and Its Discontents, where he reduced the "oceanic experience" of mystics to "infantile helplessness" and a "regression to primary narcissism." It is also evident in the 1976 report by the Group for the Advancement of Psychiatry (GAP) on "Mysticism: Spiritual Quest or Psychic Disturbance" (Group for Advancement of Psychiatry, 1976). As Deikman (1977) pointed out in his review, "the authors follow Freud's lead in defining the mystic perception of unity as a regression, an escape, a projection upon the world of a primitive infantile state" (p 214). Finally, much of the clinical literature has perpetuated this pathological perspective on the mystical experience, viewing it as symptomatic of ego regression (Freud, 1959; Leuba, 1929), borderline psychosis (Group for Advancement of Psychiatry, 1976), a psychotic episode (Horton, 1974), and temporal lobe dysfunction (Mandel, 1980). Offsetting the clinical literature that views mystical experiences as pathological, many theorists (Bucke, 1961; Hood, 1974, 1976; James, 1961; Jung, 1973; Laski, 1968; Maslow, 1962, 1971; Stace, 1960; Underhill, 1955) have viewed mystical experiences as a sign of health and a powerful agent of transformation. Results of a recent survey (Allman, et al,. 1992) suggest that most clinicians do not view mystical experiences as pathological. Also, studies by several researchers have found that people reporting mystical experiences scored lower on psychopathology scales and higher on measures of psychological well-being than controls (Caird, 1987; Hood, 1976, 1977, 1979; Spanos and Moretti, 1988).
Definitional Issues
There is a great deal of variability in the definitions of mystical experience used by researchers and clinicians, ranging from Neumann's "upheaval of the total personality" (Neumann, 1964) to Greeley's "spiritual force that seems to lift you out of yourself" (Greeley, 1974) to "everyday mysticism" (Scharfstein, 1973). William James wrote about a spectrum of mystical experiences ranging from the non-religious to the most religiously profound (James, 1985). Even the "simplest" sort of mystical experience has a "noetic" quality --a strong sense of significance and knowledge associated with the experience. It is one of four qualities that James uses to define mystical states of consciousness. "Ineffable" is another characteristic which marks an experience as mystical; the experience defies verbal expression. Due to its subjective nature, the experience is much like states of feeling. James asserts that these two qualities "entitle any state to be called mystical" (p.302). However, such experiences are generally transient and hard to recall. They remain just out of reach. But, some memory always remains, which can "modify the inner life of the subject between the times of their recurrence" (p.303). A definition of the mystical experience which is congruent with the major theoretical literature and can be applied clinically is as follows:
The mystical experience is a transient, extraordinary experience marked by feelings of being in unity, harmonious relationship to the divine and everything in existence, as well as euphoric feelings, noesis, loss of ego functioning, alterations in time and space perception, and the sense of lacking control over the event.
Incidence of Mystical Experiences
Numerous studies assessing the incidence of mystical experience (Back and Bourque, 1970; Greeley, 1974, 1987; Hay and Morisy, 1978; Hood, 1974, 1975, 1977; Thomas and Cooper, 1980) all support the conclusion that 30-40% of the population do have such experiences, suggesting that they are normal rather than pathological phenomena. In addition, a recent survey (Allman et al., 1992) has demonstrated that the number of patients who bring mystical experiences into treatment is not insignificant. Psychologists in full-time practice were asked to estimate the percentage of their clients over the past 12 months who had reported a mystical experience. The 285 respondents indicated that of the 20,670 clients seen during the past year, the incidence of mystical experience was 4.5%. This clearly challenges the GAP report on Mysticism, which claims that "mystical experiences are rarely observed in psychotherapeutic practice" (Group for Advancement of Psychiatry, 1976, p. 799).
Case Illustration
The GAP report (Group for Advancement of Psychiatry, 1976) included a case study illustrating how a mystical experience can become the focus of treatment. The patient was a woman in her early thirties who sought out therapy to deal with unresolved parental struggles and guilt over a younger brother's psychosis. Approximately two years into her therapy, she underwent a typical mystical experience, including a state of ecstacy, a sense of union with the universe, a heightened awareness transcending space and time, and a greater sense of meaning and purpose to her life. This experience increasingly became the focus of her continued treatment, as she worked to integrate the insights and attitudinal changes that followed. As the study reported: Her mood was ecstatic (if you prefer a theological term) or euphoric (if you prefer psychiatric vocabulary); it persisted for about ten days. She felt that everything in her life had led up to this momentous experience and that all her knowledge had become reorganized during its course. For her, the most important gain from it was a conviction that she was a worthwhile person with worthwhile ideas, not the intrinsically evil person, 'rotten to the core', that her mother had convinced her she was. (p. 804) Due to the rapid alteration in her mood and her unusual ideation, the authors considered diagnoses of mania, schizophrenia, and hysteria. But they rejected these because various parameters of her outer-level functioning were either unchanged or improved, and overall the experience seemed to be more integrating than disintegrating. They concluded that "while a psychiatric diagnosis cannot be dismissed, her experience was certainly akin to those described by great religious mystics who have found a new life through them" ( p. 806). Her subsequent treatment focused on expanding the insights she had gained and on helping her to assimilate the mystical experience.
Resources
Mystics, theologians and scriptures
This site explores the mystical traditions of six religions by comparing and contrasting quotations drawn from their respective literatures. These quotations have been organized by topics.
Argus Clearninghouse Guides to Mysticism
Pure Consciousness/Mystical Experiences
Succint review of the nature of mystical experiences.
Mystical Experience with Psychotic Features |
