Consciousness

Prologue: Society & the Science of Consciousness

One might think of consciousness as a correlate or biunity between two minds. Just as perception, intuition, love and knowledge are each meaningless without reference to a respective pair of correlate concepts: the perceiver & the perceived, the anticipator & the anticipated, the lover & the beloved, the knower & the known, respectively, the basis for consciousness may be the capability to imagine what might be going on in the mind of someone else. As an example of this idea, a computer would only then be said to be conscious when it begins to ask itself what someone else might be doing with its keyboard!

Introduction

The science of consciousness has many aspects. In the following chapters, I will try to touch upon some of these. One of the most interesting, I find, is the quantitative relation between the amount of conscious and unconscious activity in the human brain.

Psychiatry

The Present State of Psychiatry

Psychiatry is still in a dismal state of progress compared with somatic medicine. Hundreds of years ago physicians believed that mental disturbances originated in malfunctions of special glands in the brain. These were assumed to exude hormones responsible for human thoughts and feelings and which govern human intuition and behavior. Main-stream, modern psychiatric research has made little effort to look beyond this view, still stubbornly adhering to the basic idea: The "mind hormones" are now called «neurotransmitters», and the "glands" emitting them are «nerve cells». On the one hand, we can take the glass-is-half-full attitude that the survival of the "gland theory" over several centuries attests to its validity. On the other hand, no medication based upon this theory (antidepressives, antipsychotics etc.) has been able as of yet to heal mental disturbance in the way that, say, antibiotics can heal someone from an infectious disease. Indeed, the medication and treatments based upon this gland paradigm seem to be nothing more than "the pill that the patient takes so that the psychiatrist does better".

So we can rightly ask: "Is that all?" What about the unrefutable evidence gathered since the inception of psychotherapy as to the effectiveness of the mind (thoughts, feelings, pictures, anticipations etc.) to directly modify the growth and networking of nerve cells via what neuroscientists call «neuroplasticity»? The mind can influence the way the mind works, not only at the purely psychological level of attitudes, but also by actually changing the «cortical maps» directing information processing in the brain. In fact, the mind is even able to influence the body at large in the most drastic manner imaginable, namely, death: If a person and his social environment believe firmly enough that someone else can kill this person with a curse, this person will die if cursed. Voodoo death is a reality, not due to supernatural powers, but resulting from the hypnotic influence of one's own mind over one's own body (autosuggestion). The same mental influence can result in tabu death and homesickness death, as well as many other psychogenic death phenomena. (See my link IMAGINATION.)

"Changing the sign" on such psychogenic death phenomena, we have strong evidence for the reality of psychogenic healing, that is, healing by imagination. The success of the «placebo effect», «hypnosis», «psychotherapy» and other imaginative healing methods which influence the way the mind-brain processes information within a given neural network attests to how the mind can heal both mind and body. Why is there so little attention being paid to these facts in main-stream psychiatric research?

We seem to degradate psychiatry and psychiatric patients no less than we denounce the legislation of mind expanding drugs. What is society so afraid of? Consciousness, in general, or altered states of consciousness in particular? But isn't it just these altered states which can give us insight into the chthonic mysteries of the human soul and help pave the way for creative solutions to world problems? After all, aren't the "crazy" insights of modern physics (relativity theory, quantum physics ...) which, at the same time, offer mankind untold possibilities for the future? (Here I'm thinking, for example, of space travel and computers, to mention only two.)

Perhaps the problem is that we all too quickly equate consciousness with reason, and consider reason as a necessary and sufficient characteristic of being human. And if we can't reason with someone? Just because we can't reason with somebody doesn't mean we should ignore our common sense in dealing with them. Nor should we neglect our natural empathy for a fellow human being, even if they happen to be a deeply disturbed psychiatric patient.

Are they still human? There might be an unconscious, archetypal prejudice hidden in each and every one of us that someone is less human to the same extent that we can't reason with them. If someone hears voices that I don't hear, I can't reason with them. So, are they all the less human for it? Or am I?

This subsection of this chapter of my website is devoted to attempts at answers to the above and similar societal questions relevant to the concept of consciousness.

Psychotherapy

Psychotherapy, in the broadest sense of the concept, is a means of "expanding" consciousness.

In particular, psychotherapy increases our awareness of five important things:

1. the extent to which our attitudes and behaviour are subject to the suggestive influence of our conscious outer world.
   Part of these surroundings are quite personal, including our parents, relatives, lovers, friends etc.. Other parts of our social environment are quite impersonal, incompassing, amongst other things, governmental, religious and other bodies or institutions.
   
   Until roughly the first 20 years of our life, we are strongly involved with fulfilling the expectations which others have imposed upon us - for our own good or to our detriment - while we are growing up. The rest of our life is involved with challenging these motives, correcting them and discovering or creating new ones while continuing to be under the influence of our conscious outer world.
   
   
2. the extent to which our attitudes and behaviour are subject to the suggestive influence of our unconscious inner world.
   Part of this inner life is populated with personal prejudices, superstitions, convictions, beliefs etc. Other parts of this internal life are populated with collective ideas and pictures native to our inborn human nature.
   
   Once again during roughly the first 20 years of life, our nervous, horomonal, metabolic and immune systems are developing biologically and unfolding according to certain genetic predeterminants. It is during this time that important cortical, hormonal, metabolic and immunal networks are laid out in the brain and body, like the instructions for a music piece or the steps of a dance are written down on paper for a choreography. Accordingly, it is during this time that these systems learn to "harmonize and dance" with each other: the "musical" of physical and mental health. If things go too wrong during this important developmental period, if this "musical" is not well-learned, we may be prone to later develop certain stubborn physical and mental illnesses which resist usual medical treatment. These mind-body illnesses can also be triggered later in life by certain unfortunate life events like the sudden unexpected loss of partner, job or home, or by other severe stress factors such as a serious physical illness due to external factors (environmental/food poisons, bacteria, viruses ets.) or serious injury or traumata (mental cruelty within a relationship, rape, torture etc.).
   
   
3. the extent to which we unconsciously project or transfer contents from our inner world into our social environment. The attitudes and behaviours associated with the projections and transferences of our own inner contents upon others belong to what psychotherapists call "complexes". When complexes cause us or our social environment problems, they make up a good part of what psychotherapists call "neurosis".
   
   Such complexes are part of normal life and belong to magical thinking, superstition and prejudice. Most people don't realize, however, that they also harbor superstitions and prejudices about themselves, not only about others!.
   
   
4. the extent to which our inner world has become invaded by other people's unconscious projections or transferences upon us. Our reactions to the projections and transferences of others upon ourself are called "countertransferences". These are also part of normal life. However, when they cause us or our social environment problems, they also - together with our troublesome complexes - make up another good part of what psychotherapists call "neurosis".
   
   Here we have, for example, the problems arising from growing up or living as an adult under situations of constant stress (compulsive parent, family tensions, marital/relationship problems, mobbing, captivity ...).
   
   
5. the extent to which our inner world has become invaded by certain contents of the overall unconscious common to the world in general. This is often what happens when a person becomes psychotic. Of course, both psychosis and neurosis of the mind also have corresponding parallels in the body. I have more to say about these neurobiological issues elsewhere in this site.

All these things can contribute in an individual way to the development of the various disorders known to medical science such as emotional disorders like depression and mania, as well as marital and family problems; neurotic disorders like obsessive-compulsive disorder; stress disorders like panic attacks, burn-out and post-traumatic stress syndrome; somatoform disorders like sleeping or sexual problems; developmental and behavioural problems like attentional deficit hyperactivity syndrome (ADHS) and multiple personality disorder; eating/digestion disorders like anorexia, binging, bulimia, morbus crohn, overeating and ulcers; personality disorders like "borderline" and narcissism; substance-abuse (alcoholism, drug adiction, smoking etc.); psychotic disturbances such as paranoia and schizophrenia; mind-body illnesses such as multiple chemical sensitivity (MCS) and all kinds of auto-immune illnesses, to mention only a few. In all cases, an individual combination of psychotherapy and hypnotherapy can be of major help.

A combination of psychotherapy and hypnotherapy can also be useful within consciousness medicine in order to help boost or control the interplay between the immune, hormone and nervous systems in cases of cancer, HIV-positive/AIDS, multiple chemical sensitivity (MCS), myasthenia gravis, polyneuropathy and other primarily physical illnesses including chronic pain.

Generic Healing Process: less long, less often, less severe

It has been my clinical experience that most dynamical disorders – whether primarily of a mental (depression, fear, obsessive-compulsive disorder, panic, psychosis ...) or physiological (asthma, exzema, hay fever, pain ...) nature – tend to remiss according to the following generic scheme:

Firstly, the episodes of illness shorten while the intervals of remission between episodes and the severity of illness during episodes persist.

Secondly, the intervals of remission between episodes lengthen while the severity of illness during episodes persists.

Thirdly, the severity of illness during episodes decreases.

Inititally, the suffering associated with the given illness is as intense as ever:  However, over time, (1) the length of suffering decreases and (2) the remissioin time between (ever shorter) episodes of suffering increases, i.e. suffering becomes shorter and less frequent.  Only at the very end approaching full remission does the patient notice that (3) the very extent/intensity/severity of illness diminishes.  Of course, there are mixed forms of remission by which the above three steps may overlap, entangle, or reverse order, for example, whereby the severity of illness diminishes from the very start only to be followed by, say, less frequent and then shorter episodes.  A typical course of remission can be schematically illustrated by letting the length of disorder be represented by a number of X’s, the length of time between episodes by dashes, and the severity of disorder by the size of the font printing the X’s:  less long, less often, less severe.

(1: shorter)    XXXXXX-XXXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXX- etc.

(2: less often) XXX-XXX--XXX---XXX----XXX-----XXX------ etc.

(3: weaker)    XXX------xxx------ etc.

A fitting metaphor for the course of a chronic or episodic illness is that of the unruly guest:

Even though he is paying you an unwelcome visit, be patient and polite with him and be attentive to what he has to say.  Try to figure out what it is about you that motivates him to show up so often and to stay so long, so that you can convince him to pay you ever shorter and less frequent visits in the future.  Whether or not you might be able to also convince him to improve his behaviour from visit to visit will have to remain an open question.

Quick & Dirty Psychotherapeutic Ideas

Partnership

A partnership comprises three necessary independent involvements:

• Love
• Companionship
• Sex
• Mutually trustful, unspoken, open invitation to all aspects each other's lives

You can love an object: a place, a souvenier, a trophy, a dress, a car ...

You can find companionship with a house pet.

You can have sex with yourself.

You can also have a mutually trustful, unspoken, open invitation to all aspects each other's lives with your closest friend(s) and/or relatives.

So, how much of the involvement with your partner is object, companion, sex toy and friend, and how much involvement is left over as the quintessence of your partnership?

Accident, Coincident, Evident

The first time something goes wrong, consider it an accident: “Shit happens!”

The second time the same thing goes wrong within a reasonable time period from the first time, consider it a coincidence: “Nobody’s perfect!”

The third time the same thing goes wrong, again within a reasonable length of time since the second time, you can assume that something is going on:

• Am I the only person involved in the three negative events, for example, was it always me who forgot to meet someone?  In this case, I have to change something to avoid the same mistake in the future.
• Is it always the same other person involved in all three negative events, for example, was it always Oscar who forgot to meet me?  In this case, Oscar has to change something to avoid the same mistake in the future.

Mathematically speaking:

One data point can be simply noise, two data points can always be understood to define a line, but starting with three data points it might be possible to recognize a trajectory ...

“How can I know what I think until I feel what I do?”

Most decisions in life are made after trying out the possibilities involved.

Information about depthpsychologically oriented Psychotherapy

In the following I offer an orientation to depthpsychologically oriented psychotherapy and hypnotherapy. Since my own practice is in Zürich, Switzerland where most of my patients speak German and Swiss-German, I offer the entire information below in German.

As of date (19. March 2012), I only have the German texts available.

Information zur tiefenpsychologisch-orientierten Psychotherapie