The extraordinary and often dramatic effects of psychedelic therapy and other experiential approaches naturally raise the question about the therapeutic mechanisms involved in these changes. Although the dynamics of some of the powerful symptomatic changes and personality transformations observed after experiential sessions can be explained along conventional lines, the majority of them involves processes as yet undiscovered and unacknowledged by traditional academic psychiatry and psychology.
This does not mean that phenomena of this kind have never been encountered and discussed before. Some of the descriptions occur in anthropological literature focusing on shamanic practices, rites of passage, and healing ceremonies of various aboriginal cultures. Historical sources and religious literature abound with descriptions of the effects of spiritual healing practices and meetings of various ecstatic sects on emotional and psychosomatic disorders. However, reports of this sort have not been seriously studied because of their obvious incompatibility with the existing scientific paradigms. The material accumulated in the last several decades by modern consciousness research suggests strongly that data of this kind should be critically reevaluated. Obviously there are many extremely effective mechanisms of healing and personality transformation that greatly exceed the biographical manipulations of mainstream psychotherapy.
Some of the therapeutic mechanisms operating in the initial stages and more superficial forms of experiential psychotherapy are identical with those known from traditional handbooks of psychotherapy. However, their intensity characteristically transcends that of the corresponding phenomena in verbal approaches. Experiential techniques of psychotherapy weaken the defense system and decrease psychological resistance. The emotional responses of the subject are dramatically enhanced, and one can observe powerful abreaction and catharsis. Repressed unconscious material from childhood and infancy becomes easily available. This may result not only in great facilitation of recall, but also genuine age regression and a complex, vivid reliving of emotionally relevant memories. The emergence of this material and its integration are associated with emotional and intellectual insights into the psychodynamics of the client’s symptoms and maladjusted interpersonal patterns.
The mechanisms of transference and transference analysis that are considered critical in psychoanalytically oriented psychotherapy deserve special notice here. Reenactment of the original pathogenic constellations and the development of transference neurosis is traditionally considered to be an absolutely necessary condition of successful therapy. In experiential therapy, with or without psychedelic drugs, transference is considered an unnecessary complication that must be discouraged. When one uses an approach so powerful that it can take the client, frequently in one session, to the actual source of various emotions and physical sensations, transference to the therapist or sitter must be seen as an indication of resistance and defense against confronting the real issue. While in the experiential session the sitter may actually play the parental role, even to the point of offering nourishing physical contact, it is essential that minimum carry-over occurs during the free intervals between sessions. Experiential techniques should cultivate independence and personal responsibility for one’s own process, rather than dependency of any kind.
In contrast to what might generally be expected, a direct fulfillment of anaclitic needs4 during experiential sessions tends to foster independence, rather than cultivate dependency. This seems to be parallel to observations from developmental psychology suggesting that adequate emotional satisfaction in childhood makes it easy for the child to become independent from the mother. It is those children who experience chronic emotional deprivation who never resolve the bond and continue to search for the rest of their lives for the fulfillment they missed in their childhood. Similarly, it seems to be the chronic frustration in the psychoanalytic situation that foments transference, whereas the direct fulfillment of the anaclitic needs of an individual in a deeply regressed state facilitates its resolution.
Many sudden and dramatic changes on deeper levels can be explained in terms of an interplay of unconscious constellations that have the function of dynamic governing systems. The most important of these are the systems of condensed experience (COEX systems), which organize the material of a biographical nature, and the basic perinatal matrices (BPM’s), which have a similar role in relation to the experiential repositories related to birth and the death-rebirth process. The essential characteristics of these two categories of functional governing systems have already been described in detail. We could also mention transpersonal dynamic matrices; however, because of the extraordinary richness and looser organization of transpersonal realms, it would be more difficult to describe them in a comprehensive manner. The system of perennial philosophy, which assigns various transpersonal phenomena to different levels of the subtle and causal realms could be used as an important lead for such future classifications.
According to the nature of the emotional charge, we can distinguish negative governing systems (negative COEX systems, BPM II, BPM III, negative aspects of BPM I, and negative transpersonal matrices) from positive governing systems (positive COEX systems, BPM IV, positive aspects of BPM I, and positive transpersonal matrices). The general strategy of experiential therapy is reduction of the emotional charge attached to negative systems and facilitation of experiential access to positive ones. A more specific tactical rule is to structure the termination period of each individual session in such a way that it facilitates completion and integration of the unconscious material which was made available on that particular day.
The manifest clinical condition of an individual is not a global reflection of the nature and over-all amount of that person’s unconscious material (if this term is at all relevant to, and appropriate for, the events in the world of consciousness). How the individual experiences himself and the world is much more dependent on a specific, selective focus and tuning, which makes certain aspects of unconscious material readily experientially available. Individuals who are tuned in to various levels of negative biographical, perinatal, or transpersonal governing systems perceive themselves and the world in a generally pessimistic way and experience emotional and psychosomatic distress. Conversely, those persons who are under the influence of positive dynamic governing systems are in a state of emotional well-being and optimal psychosomatic functioning. The specific qualities of the resulting states depend in both instances on the nature of the activated material.5
Changes in the governing influence of dynamic matrices can occur as a result of various biochemical or physiological processes within the organism or be induced by a number of external influences of a physical or psychological nature. Experiential sessions seem to represent a deep intervention in the dynamics of governing systems in the psyche and their functional interplay. Detailed analysis of the phenomenology of deep experiential sessions indicates that in many instances sudden and dramatic improvement during therapy can be explained as a shift from the psychological dominance of a negative governing system to a state in which the individual is under the selective influence of a positive constellation. Such a change does not necessarily mean that all the unconscious material underlying the psychopathology involved has been worked through. It simply indicates an inner dynamic shift from one governing system to another. This situation, which can be termed transmodulation, can occur on several different levels.
A shift involving biographical constellations can be called COEX transmodulation. A comparable dynamic shift from one dominant perinatal matrix to another would be called BPM transmodulation. A transpersonal transmodulation, then, involves governing functional systems in the transindividual realms of the unconscious.
A typical positive transmodulation has a biphasic course. It involves intensification of the dominant negative system and a sudden shift to the positive one. However, if a strong positive system is readily available, it can dominate the experiential session from the very beginning, while the negative system recedes into the background. A shift from one dynamic constellation to another does not necessarily lead to clinical improvement. There is a possibility that a poorly resolved and inadequately integrated session will result in a negative transmodulation —a shift from a positive system to a negative one. This situation is characterized by a sudden occurrence of psychopathological symptoms that were not manifest before the session. This should be a rare event in experiential work conducted by a knowledgeable and well-trained therapist. It should be seen as an indication that another session should be scheduled in the near future to complete the gestalt.
Another interesting possibility is a shift from one negative system to another system also negative in nature. The external manifestation of this intrapsychic event is a remarkable qualitative change in psychopathology from one clinical syndrome to another. Occasionally, this transformation can be so dramatic that the client moves within hours into a completely different clinical category.6 Although the resulting condition may appear on the surface to be entirely new, all its essential elements existed in a potential form in the patient’s unconscious before the dynamic shift occurred. It is important to realize that experiential therapy, in addition to actual thorough working through of unconscious material, can also involve dramatic shifts of focus that change its experiential relevance.
The therapeutic changes associated-with biographical material are of relatively minor significance, with the exception of those related to reliving of memories of major physical traumas and life-threatening situations. The therapeutic power of the experiential process increases considerably when self-exploration reaches the perinatal level.7 Experiential sequences of dying and being born can result in a dramatic alleviation, or even disappearance, of a broad spectrum of emotional and psychosomatic problems.
As already discussed in detail, the negative perinatal matrices represent an important repository of emotions and physical sensations of extraordinary intensity—a truly universal matrix for many different forms of psychopathology. Such crucial symptoms as anxiety, aggression, depression, the fear of death, feelings of guilt, a sense of inferiority, helplessness, and general emotional and physical tension have deep roots on the perinatal level. The perinatal model also provides a natural explanation for a variety of psychosomatic symptoms and disorders. Many aspects of these phenomena and their interrelations make profound sense when considered in the context of the birth trauma.
It is, therefore, not surprising that powerful experiential death-rebirth sequences can be associated with clinical improvement of a wide variety of emotional and psychosomatic disorders, ranging from depression, claustrophobia, and sadomasochism through alcoholism and narcotic drug addiction to asthma, psoriasis, and migraine headaches. Even new strategies in relation to some forms of psychosis can be logically derived from the involvement of perinatal matrices in these psychopathological manifestations.
However, probably most interesting and challenging are the observations from experiential therapy related to the therapeutic potential of the transpersonal domain of the psyche. In many instances, specific clinical symptoms are anchored in dynamic structures of a transpersonal nature and cannot be resolved on the level of biographical, or even perinatal, experiences. In order to resolve a specific emotional, psychosomatic, or interpersonal problem, the client must sometimes experience dramatic sequences of a clearly transpersonal nature. Many extraordinary and most interesting observations from experiential therapy indicate an urgent need to incorporate the transpersonal dimension and perspective into everyday psychotherapeutic practice.
Fig. 43. The identification with the fetus during undisturbed intrauterine existence has typically a strong numinous quality. A painting showing the insight into the relationship between embryonic bliss and the Buddha nature achieved in a high-dose LSD session.
In some instances, difficult emotional and psychosomatic symptoms that could not be resolved on the biographical or perinatal level disappear or are considerably mitigated when the subject confronts various embryonic traumas. The reliving of attempted abortions, maternal diseases or emotional crises during pregnancy, and fetal experiences of being unwanted (“rejecting womb”), can be of great therapeutic value. Particularly dramatic instances of therapeutic change can be observed in connection with experiences of a past incarnation. These sometimes occur simultaneously with the perinatal phenomena, at other times as independent experiential gestalts. Occasionally, ancestral experiences can play a similar role; in this case, symptoms disappear after clients allow themselves to have experiences that seem to involve memories of events from the lives of their close or remote ancestors. I have also seen individuals who identified some of their problems as internalized conflicts between the families of their ancestors and resolved them on this level.
Some psychopathological and psychosomatic symptoms can be identified as reflections of emerging animal or plant consciousness. When this occurs, full experiential identification with an animal or plant form will be necessary to resolve the problems involved. In some instances, individuals discover in their experiential sessions that some of their symptoms, attitudes, and behaviors are manifestations of an underlying archetypal pattern. Occasionally, the energy forms involved can have such an alien quality that their manifestation resembles what has been described as “spirit possession,” and the therapeutic procedure can have many characteristics of exorcism, as practiced by the medieval church, or of the expulsion of evil spirits in aboriginal cultures. The sense of cosmic unity, identification with the Universal Mind, or experience of the Supracosmic and Metacosmic Void deserve special notice in this context. They have an enormous therapeutic potential that cannot be accounted for by any of the existing theories based on the Newtonian-Cartesian paradigm.
It is a great irony and one of the paradoxes of modern science that transpersonal experiences, which until recently were indiscriminately labeled as psychotic, have a great healing potential that transcends most of what the armamentarium of contemporary psychiatry has to offer. Whatever the therapist’s professional and philosophical opinion may be about the nature of transpersonal experiences, he or she should be aware of their therapeutic potential and support clients if their voluntary or involuntary self-exploration takes them into transpersonal realms.
In the most general sense, emotional and psychosomatic symptoms indicate a blockage of the flow of energy and ultimately represent potential experiences in a condensed form that are trying to emerge. Their content can consist of specific childhood memories, difficult emotions accumulated in a lifetime, birth sequences, karmic constellations, archetypal patterns, phylogenetic episodes, animal or plant identifications, manifestations of demonic energy, or many other phenomena. Effective therapeutic mechanisms in the broadest sense, then, involve release of the blocked energy and facilitation of its experiential and behavioral expression with no commitment as to which form it will take.
Completion of the experiential gestalt brings therapeutic results whether or not the processes involved have been intellectually understood. We have seen, both in psychedelic therapy and in the experiential sessions using the technique of holonomic integration, dramatic resolution of problems with long-lasting effects even when the mechanisms involved transcended any rational comprehension. The following example is a useful illustration:
Several years ago, we had in one of our five-day workshops a woman—call her Gladys—who for many years had had serious daily attacks of depression. They usually started after four o’clock every morning and lasted several hours. It was extremely difficult for her to mobilize her resources to face the new day.
In the workshop, she participated in a session of holonomic integration (see pp. 387-9). This technique combines controlled breathing, evocative music, and focused body work and is, in my opinion, the most powerful experiential approach with the exception of psychedelic therapy.
Gladys responded to the breathing session with an extraordinary mobilization of body energies, but did not reach a resolution; this situation was quite exceptional in the work we are doing. The next morning the depression came as usual, but was much more profound than at any previous time. Gladys came to the group in a state of great tension, depression, and anxiety. It was necessary to change our program for the morning and do experiential work with her without delay.
We asked her to lie down with her eyes closed, breathe faster, listen to music we were playing, and surrender to any experience that wanted to surface. For about fifty minutes Gladys showed violent tremors and other signs of strong psychomotor excitement; she was screaming loudly and fighting invisible enemies. Retrospectively, she reported that this part of her experience involved the reliving of her birth. At a certain point, her screams became more articulate and started to resemble words in an unknown language. We asked her to let the sounds come out in whatever form they took, without intellectually judging them. Her movements suddenly became extremely stylized and emphatic, and she chanted what appeared to be a powerful prayer.
The impact of this event on the group was extremely strong. Without understanding the words, most members of the group felt deeply moved and started crying. When Gladys completed her chant, she quieted down and moved into a state of ecstasy and bliss in which she stayed, entirely motionless, for more than an hour. Retrospectively, she could not explain what had happened and indicated that she had absolutely no idea what language she was using in her chant.
An Argentinian psychoanalyst present in the group recognized that Gladys had chanted in perfect Sephardic, a language he happened to know. He translated her words as: “I am suffering and I will always suffer. I am crying and I will always cry. I am praying and I will always pray.” Gladys herself did not speak even modern Spanish, not to say Sephardic, and did not know what the Sephardic language was.
In some other instances we have seen a shamanic chant, speaking in tongues, or authentic animal sounds of various species expressed with similar beneficial consequences. Since no therapeutic system can possibly predict events of this kind, implicit trust in the intrinsic wisdom of the process seems to be the only intelligent strategy possible in situations of this kind.
Frequently psychopathological symptoms are related to more than one level of the psyche, or band of consciousness. I will conclude this section on effective mechanism of psychotherapy and personality transformation by describing our experience with a participant of one of our five-day groups who has since become a close friend.
Norbert, a psychologist and minister by profession, had suffered for years from severe pains in his shoulder and pectoral muscles. Repeated medical examinations, including x-rays, did not detect any organic basis for his problem and all therapeutic attempts remained unsuccessful. During the session of holonomic integration, he had great difficulty tolerating music and had to be encouraged to stay with the process in spite of severe discomfort. For about an hour and a half, he experienced severe pains in his breast and shoulder, struggled violently as if his life were seriously threatened, choked and coughed, and let out a variety of loud screams. Later he quieted down and was relaxed and peaceful. With great surprise, he reported that the experience had released the tension in his shoulder and that he was free of pain. This relief turned out to be permanent; it is now over five years since that session and the symptoms have not returned.
Retrospectively, Norbert reported that there were three different layers in his experience, all related to the pain in his shoulder. On the most superficial level he relived a frightening situation from his childhood in which he almost lost his life. He and his friends were digging a tunnel on a sandy beach. When Norbert was inside it, the tunnel collapsed and he almost choked to death before being rescued.
When the experience deepened, he relived several sequences of the struggle in the birth canal, which also involved choking and severe pain in the shoulder that was stuck behind the pubic bone of his mother.
In the last part of the session, the experience changed dramatically. Norbert started seeing military uniforms and horses and recognized that he was involved in a battle. He was even able to identify it as one of the battles in Cromwell’s England. At one point, he felt a sharp pain and realized that his chest had been pierced by a lance. He fell off the horse and experienced himself as dying, trampled by the horses.
Whether or not experiences of this kind reflect “objective reality,” their therapeutic value is unquestionable. A therapist who is unwilling to support them because of intellectual skepticism is giving up a therapeutic tool of extraordinary power.