Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Spiritual Emergency: The Understanding and Treatment of Transpersonal Crises

2017; Volume: 36; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.24972/ijts.2017.36.2.30

1942-3241

Christina Grof, Stanislav Grof,

Religion, Spirituality, and Psychology

The Concept of Spiritual Emergency T here exists increasing evidence that many individuals experiencing episodes of nonordinary states of consciousness accompanied by various emotional, perceptual, and psychosomatic manifestations are undergoing an evolutionary crisis rather than suffering from a mental disease (Grof, 1985).The recognition of this fact has important practical and theoretical consequences.If properly understood and treated as difficult stages in a natural developmental process, these experiences-spiritual emergencies or transpersonal crises-can result in emotional and psychosomatic healing, creative problem-solving, personality transformation, and consciousness evolution.This fact is reflected in the term "spiritual emergency," which suggests a crisis, but also suggests the potential for rising to a higher state of being.Traditional psychiatry does not recognize the difference between mystical and psychotic experiences.All unusual states of consciousness are essentially seen as pathological and attributed to anatomical, physiological, and biochemical changes in the brain, or other medical causes.There is no acknowledgement that any dramatic experiential states involving changes of consciousness could be potentially therapeutic and transformative.Psychiatry thus routinely and indiscriminately uses controlling and suppressive approaches to terminate such experiences.However, in the case of transpersonal crises, insensitive use of repressive measures can lead to chronicity and long-term dependence on tranquillizing medication or other pharmaceuticals with ensuing serious side effects and impoverishment of personality.It seems, therefore, extremely important to clarify theoretically the concept of transpersonal crises and to develop comprehensive and effective approaches to their treatment.Spiritual emergencies (transpersonal crises) can occur spontaneously without any precipitating factors, or they can be triggered by emotional stress, physical exertion, disease, accident, intense sexual experience, childbirth, or exposure to psychedelic drugs.However, in many instances the catalyzing factor seems to be involvement in various meditative practices which are specifically designed to activate spiritual energies.As spiritual disciplines are gaining popularity in the West, an increasing number of people are experiencing transpersonal crises that can be traced to their practice of yoga, Zen, various movement meditations, pranayama, Kundalini maneuvers, Tibetan Buddhist psychoenergetic exercises, Christian prayer, and other forms of deep and systematic spiritual involvement and self-exploration.Supportive evidence for the concept of spiritual emergency can be drawn from a variety of fields : history, anthropology, comparative religion, clinical psychiatry, modern consciousness research, psychedelic therapy, Jungian psychology, new experiential psychotherapies, and many others.Indirectly, the developments in a variety of scientific disciplines that undermine the Newtonian-Cartesian model of the universe and mechanistic thinking can be used to support the new concepts.Though incompatible with traditional thinking in science, the new approaches are congruent with many important aspects of the emerging paradigm (Grof, 1985). Definition of Spiritual EmergencyT o prevent misunderstanding, it is important to emphasize that not every experience of unusual states of consciousness and intense perceptual, emotional, cognitive, and psychosomatic changes falls into the category of spiritual emergency.The concept of transpersonal crisis is not oriented against traditional psychiatry; it offers an alternative approach to individuals who can benefit from it and are capable and willing to accept it.