West Cork, Ireland. I woke up one morning with a previous day's session on my mind, and a recurring sense of the need for a more organic and holistic approach to the understanding of mental illness.
Greg White, PsychotherapistWest Cork, Ireland. I woke up one morning with a previous day's session on my mind, and a recurring sense of the need for a more organic and holistic approach to the understanding of mental illness.
I began by firstly reversing the view of the patient as `abnormal object' and the `normal' medical attendant as subject. This would then suggest that psychosis, the most serious mental illness from the standpoint of Western medicine, be considered afresh; something emanating from the `normal' collective consciousness, albeit unconsciously as well as presenting with the suffering individual, herself. Place this in an alchemical context and now pose the question; is this illness not the elusive and mysterious Philosophers Stone itself.
Carl Jung as doctor, psychiatrist, psychotherapist and scholar, became increasingly aware, that, in respect of serious mental illness, a large segment of the psychological equation was missing, namely, empirical awareness of the subjective reality of the patient. Thus no matter how far medical science and clinical object knowledge progressed, precious little was (or indeed is) known about the irrational field of the patient itself. In 1914 Jung allowed himself to slip into a psychotic state and by his own account thereafter alternated between that and normal consciousness, for approximately four years.
Some years elapsed before Jung with newly won insight, stumbled on a connection between his experience and that of others. It was there in the written deliberations of the alchemists, the erstwhile pioneers of chemical science. Although to the layman, much of the old writings of alchemy appeared nothing more than mumbo jumbo -about for instance changing base metal to gold- he grasped a deeper agenda, the soul or spirit behind this endeavour. This led him to carefully study the psychological projections of the alchemists themselves. From here he was able to empirically confirm much of his own subjective understanding of the unconscious psyche.
Without putting too much of a face on it, he deduced that the real quest of these often publicly reviled individuals was for fundamental truth, something intangible, spiritual/soulful within the psyche itself, rather than outside in some other quarter of the universe. The Philosopher's Stone then is the term used to represent this, the symbolic psychic potentiality that exists unconsciously within each individuating soul.
Now if we take two bisecting co-ordinates from two diametrically opposed camps, the Biblical and that of the alchemists themselves, there is one sure way of characterising this stone in three dimensional space and time. It is by both described as having no value, but immense potential; under everyone's noses, though invisible; yet is rejected by one and all. In the view of some Gnostic Christians, in the years following his death, it was allegorically described as that quality realised in Christ himself.
If we equate the mentally ill patient as actually the` bearer' of the stone, we posit a suffering but richly endowed individual, by definition supremely sensitive to yet being `crucified' by, the groups projections of endemic `rational insensitivity'. This individual super-sensitivity is a natural condition of the feminine psyche (in some men but more often in women) experienced as constantly being pulled in different directions by divergent factors competing for its attention. Earlier he/she likely similarly suffered the fate of the hypersensitive child born into an unfeeling insensitive family, relatively inured of soul. The family disturbed by this busies itself in forming a natural alliance against it; at best failing to affirm, at worst being abusive towards it. The great majority of those regarded as mentally ill are women or emotionally disturbed men.
In the beginning this rejection, rather than alienating the subject, has directly quite the reverse effect. For psychotherapists know from their clients
that the more the stone is rejected, the more it is desires fusion with its opposite, this collective (rational/spiritual) agenda ranged against it. Feminine soul and masculine spirit are fated to attract each other. The immediate family and relations, progressively more confused, project this onto the individual and agitate for the stone's alienation, the bearer being herself deemed sick with it.
Typically at a critical point thereafter, the patient experiences this as her own illness- acts out this confusion- or maybe withdraws into herself. Now following her own rejection of the stone, she becomes `depressed' and even possibly suicidal. Thus the Cornerstone of the Temple, is made manifest just as it suffers complete rejection, for Biblically ` many come forth but few are chosen.' The rejected stone- as well as making manifest its bearers frustrated potentiality for self- actualization - inversely triggers the hyper-rationality of the family and society. There is no better place to witness this phenomenon than in a psychiatric hospital.
It wasn't always like that. I think here of situations in earlier times, and still in so-called primitive societies, where such `mad' people were simply marked off as potential shamans, where the volition of these individuals- the stone- was in fact nurtured, so that they could be fully accepted into the group. In a society like Tibet for instance, where the struggle with the stone's rejection is revered as a rite de passage, as well as being recognised as such for the suffering individual, its manifestation signals the community's (religious) continuous inclination towards its own redemption. However presently in the West, the bearer is likely regarded as mentally ill (especially if he is observed communicating with it). Thus famously if one prays to God (extrovert) one is spiritual, if God answers (introvert) one is schizophrenic'.
Still, when such matters can be facilitated in a holistic way, (e.g. in Jungian therapy in a support setting, since the healing of projections/ introjections in the context of ones myth are part of this process) the stones actualisation remains a continuing possibility. (The psychiatric contention that psychosis does not respond well to psychotherapy is a misrepresentation. It ignores the fact that few depth psychotherapists have access to an appropriate support setting in which to work with serious illness, particularly a setting more consonant with the patients volitional needs.)
More often than not however, to the degree of its rejection by society, family and the bearer, the stone is given the final coup de grace upon being clinically labelled, following the medico-legal orchestration of a perception that the bearer is either a threat to others (his oppressors) or himself. She is then forced/bullied to submit to a system dedicated to the ruthless imposition of rational consciousness, despite her innate resistance and rejection of this.
It's no accident that the attitude of scientific medicine towards soul and body is mechanistic, in line with other Western preoccupations with technological and scientific `progress'. The preoccupation with machines and the endemic obsession with control are synonymous. Many psychiatrists, along with those in primary care, doctors, psychiatric nurses, are trained to disregard the psyche, or to simply regard it like they regard the body-as a machine. The patient if treated appropriately in the brain will respond favourably to cure ( for many a psychiatric patient meaning a return to even greater repressed irrationality.) With rare exception long-term psychiatric drugs (even where the manufacturers themselves advocate otherwise) and electro-convulsive `therapy', continue to be the only components of this strategy.
If psychologists have learned anything from the Third Reich, it is the inclination of masses of people under extreme stress, to compliantly if not violently identify with the totalitarian ideals of their oppressors. Similarly in the case of the individual patient, an ailing volition for individuation is doubly vulnerable to this predilection. What chance has this volition - her psychic immune system- got to defend itself against schizoid fragmentation, if it is only encouraged to objectively experience itself in terms of the (overwhelming) mechanical medical projection, as unconsciously `in bits'; and smiling `caring staff' are offering her the chimera of cure. Psychiatric patients themselves (now at last forming self-advocacy groups) if and when they recover that volition, will confirm that this `medicine' is simply a chemical straightjacket for the stone's truth. The truth is that long-term pharmacological treatment is nothing other than chemical lobotomy.
If the illness is extreme, or the patient is also somatically ill, or if for instance the psyche of a deceased family member is an active psycho-genetic factor, she may identify with the (more hopeless medical mechanical diagnosis) a sense of having `a bit missing' and act out accordingly. Here we can refer back to Jung's perception of the projection, with regard to the `bit missing' in the equation itself.
In this light it is much less difficult to imagine why a schizophrenic individual has paranoid delusions, since what `goes around come around'. For these same `bits' projected back onto society, onto other members of family and friends, she can now only experience as persecutory parts of himself, cheating her of individuation.
There is no doubt that in older times, when methods of control were more rudimentary, the stone and the shaman personality were less differentiated. Looking at the history of religion and science we can perceive what has happened to both. The shaman's role as soul intermediary/doctor was split in much the same way as more recently, alchemy itself was, into a spiritual scientific duality presided over by priest and doctor. What got lost in this split was the soul. The backdrop to this was the Church's abandonment of Christ as stone, at about the same time they rejected incarnation in 300AD and fell back on Judaic patriarchal control, opting for the Biblical Cosmic divinity. Thus in the West the shaman has gone underground, or put another way, comes to us negatively in the grip of the collective unconscious.
The consequences of denial
History provides a hint as to what happens to a society that neglects or oppresses its mentally ill. Hitler as one of his first acts in power annihilated the insane. What then happened to the most rational technological, scientific culture in the world, is history. Western society has developed a much more sophisticated way of denying soul, through the sustained use of psychiatric drugs. Can we be surprised that the collective unconscious' response then is an endemic drug dependency on licit and illicit drugs.
If we accept only a small segment of the above, we are left with the idea that mental illness is the most threatening existential phenomenon facing rational society. Much of the rational scientific edifice, especially in the area of health, is in serious trouble. We urgently need to change our attitude towards people who suffer with mental illness. For a start if we are looking for a pointer to the way we should be `waging war against drugs', we might start looking at new and creative ways of approaching the problem, rather than facilitating pharmaceutical ways of denying its existence. One obvious solution is to be looking for the stone's development earlier on, in young people, before its overwhelming rejection in adolescence has disastrous consequences.
The Future
An educational system that has nothing to learn from young people who resist its overtures is already well in decline. The shared experience of those in self advocacy groups, suggests that if young mentally disturbed people were able to express some of their frustrations and ambivalence in their early teens, especially to their peers and others who they could identify with, they would never have been exposed to psychiatric intervention in the first place. This suggests a program of self - development for young people in schools where within certain important therapeutic parameters, they themselves develop their own counselling agenda. This would require a paradigm shift in the attitude of parents and teachers alike. Young individuals previously regarded as misfits and a threat to the status quo would be instead properly viewed and respected as potential future leaders of our society. Whatever the vocation, when this `misfit' is acknowledged as stone bearer- after a rite of passage in the form of appropriate therapeutic intervention-isn't it obvious the benefits that she and a youth oriented therapeutic genre would offer those with similar problems coming after.
I feel certain that were this process to be widely adopted, in the middle term much of our mental illness and drug related problems would disappear. As fear and the need for parental control wanes, adults would learn to accept that we have as much to learn from the alienated young and the mentally ill, as from all the academics and scientists put together. Then we can look to a very different future; when today's needs for control are only freakish by degree of rarity of occurrence; when the ideal is holistic, organic, and inclusive, and where the Rejected Stone is regularly welcomed and celebrated as a living symbol of the continuum of transformation.
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