Page 23 - NAMAH-Apr-2020

Namah Notes on counselling

When he was about 85, he began to display psychology is needed to provide a more
mild memory disturbances. When this scribe comprehensive and compassionate approach
asked him to recollect a past memorable for a whole-person narrative.
event which obviously he could not, he
rationalised and answered that these golden We shall now try to understand the different
moments were gone forever and what was dimensions of consciousness to see how we
more important was to remain calm and can simultaneously operate with analytical
undisturbed! and synthetic perspectives.

In retrospect, this patient’s schizophrenic The Physical dimension
delusion about black money in Swiss banks
had an intuitive element. Was it due to the The human being is to begin with a physical
mystical side of his character? Can delusion being in the sense that the superstructure of
per se get modified in mystic states? The living systems has been built upon a physical
relationship between psychosis and mysticism template. Hence, the physical dimension of a
is very complex and it is known that spiritual consciousness model should initially address
aspirants can become psychotic if they are the phenomenon of ‘awareness’ in neurological,
over-zealous in their spiritual pursuit without physiological, psycho-physiological, genetic,
stabilising themselves. In the present case, a developmental, cognitive, information processing,
standard psychiatric evaluation of the subject computational and other allied terms. This
would assess his delusional state, but would level should explore the physical basis of the
not have shown how his spiritual perspective ‘contents’ of consciousness (viz. sensations,
had a synthetic value in his life. emotions, images, memories, ideas) as well
as the ‘states’ of consciousness (modulated
The integral perspective therefore requires through the ascending reticular activating
an approach to consciousness that accepts system).
both analytical and synthetic viewpoints.
At the analytical level, there are certain However the scientific approach that attempts
basic dimensions to be considered while to understand physical reality by building-blocks
studying the human psyche, none of which from below upwards is no longer entirely
is superior or inferior to the other, but exist viable. This has now been acknowledged by
together in the matrix of consciousness. These physics, which has shown that sub-atomic
basic dimensions include the physical, the particles like leptons and quarks can no longer be
psychological and the social dimensions. At divided further as they lapse into formlessness.
the synthetic level, an attempt should be For consciousness studies, this means we should
made to study the spiritual dimensions try to understand how consciousness qua
of personality, while acknowledging that consciousness gets organised, without assuming
it is difficult for psychology to assess this that it is caused by some ultimate material
completely and accurately. Evidently, the substrate. It is not enough to probe the physical
conventional approach to clinical psychology consciousness at the physical plane alone, it also
and psychiatry tends to omit the synthetic needs to be probed from a higher non-physical
element, so a new consciousness-based perspective, as mystics and seers have done.

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