[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
.Such a journey entails moving away from the safetynet of construction that the individual has created to operate effectively in the world.106 Psychosis and SpiritualityIt means moving into the unknown.More challengingly, according to this model, asmy understanding of the self is essentially a construction, I lose touch with this whenI pass beyond the horizon, along with other constructs, and thereby lose the meansof making predictions.Laing (1967) writes about this:  The  ego is the instrumentfor living in this world.If the  ego is broken up, or destroyed.then the person maybe exposed to other worlds,  real in different ways from the more familiar territoryof dreams, imagination, perception or phantasy.Some Neuro-Psychological GroundingThe argument that there are two states of experiencing, distinct at the margins, yetmerging and weaving between each other in normal life requires grounding in thehardware  what we know about the operation of our brains, and which aspects ofthis might explain the existence and mechanism of the threshold (limen).Kelly ssystem is intuitively plausible, but lacks empirical verification at that level.Chapters 2and 3 explore this topic in more detail.I am currently concerned with the operationof the threshold that allows access to both spiritual states and anomalous experi-ences, in the context of our incomplete understanding of the relationship betweenneurophysiology and actual experience.Following on from Kelly, it does appear that transliminal experience is mediatedby a loosening of boundaries and greater connectedness within the brain, whereasfocused cognition relies on inhibition of extraneous influences.One of the earliestauthorities here, Frith (1979), cites variability in cognitive inhibition, leading tofailure in the system of limiting contents of consciousness in people experiencingpsychosis, and to the experimental studies which have backed this model up.Cognitive inhibition and limitation of contents of consciousness essentially describethe operation of the construct system, which directs and focuses, and hence limits,attention.It is this focus and limitation that gives precise context to our thinking, andallows us to connect the current content to relevant memories.Hemsley (1993) notesthat psychotic experience can be explained by:  the failure to relate current sensoryinput to stored regularities.This disturbance of integration could be an exactdescriptor of the disruption of the normal construing process.Hemsley identifiesdisruption of the sense of self as a consequence of this disturbance (Hemsley, 1998).The neurophysiological substrate of high schizotypy, implying easier accessibilityof the transliminal, is described in the schizotypy literature thus:The positive schizotypal nervous system has been described as an  open nervous system[.] where excitatory mechanisms are high and inhibitory processes low(McCreery and Claridge, 1996, p.756).A recent paper by Simmonds-Moore (2009) covers two further related features ofthe neurophysiological dimension in this study: greater interconnectivity ofbrain components, and  boundary thinness (Hartmann, 1991) , whereby thinnerPsychosis and Spirituality: The Discontinuity Model 107boundaries reflect a relative connectedness of psychological processes and thickerboundaries reflect a relative separateness of psychological processes.In tackling the issue of greater connectivity as a source of anomalous experiencing,Simmonds-Moore also acknowledges the role of the left/right brain dimensionwhich has long been linked to the logical/intuitive distinction, while doing justice tothe true complexity of interconnectedness within the brain by listing other importantconnections, thus:Lateral connectivity (more connectivity between cortical hemispheres; effectively agreater influence of the right hemisphere on the usually dominant left hemisphere),hierarchical connectivity (connectivity between the cortical areas of the brain and thesub-cortical structures of the brain; effectively more influence of sub cortical processeson the usually dominant left cortex of the brain), cognitive perceptual connectivity (assynaesthesia and the tendency to make associations, find a signal, and find meaning)information processing boundaries (as attentional widening  more information that isusually outside of conscious awareness is available in awareness) and interpersonalboundaries (as a tendency to get very close to other people/experience empathy)(Simmonds-Moore, 2009, p.3).Pathways in the BrainFrom this discussion, it becomes clear that it is the pathways of connection within thebrain, and the mechanisms of inhibition and dis-inhibition that determine the flowof information along them, rather than activation of particular brain areas (e.g.leftand right hemispheres) that can elucidate the distinct ways of experiencing that havebeen identified.Cognitive science has provided us with extensive research data intomemory, information processing and bottlenecks in information processing thatgive insight into the operation of these pathways.The problem here is not lack ofdata, but almost a superfluity, and the consequent problem of discerning the woodfor the trees.Teasdale and Barnard s  Interacting Cognitive Subsystem model ofcognitive architecture (Teasdale and Barnard, 1993; Barnard, 2003) offers a frame-work for making sense of this data that provides an elegant explanation for the twodistinct ways of knowing.Interacting cognitive subsystems (ICS), as the name implies, offers a modulararchitecture of the mind, comprising nine subsystems, each with its unique codingand memory store and pattern of interconnection with the others.I do not proposeto go into most of that, but will instead concern myself here with only the two higherorder, organising, subsystems, and their associated memory stores; the implicationaland the propositional.The propositional subsystem represents the logical mind,capable of fine discrimination, and the contents of whose memory store is codedverbally.It can take an objective, dispassionate view of phenomena, and in this waycan learn much about the environment [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]