a jungian framework for understanding psychedelic-induced

Dissertation Proposal, PCC November 2008

A Jungian Framework for Understanding Psychedelic-Induced Psychotic States

A Dissertation Proposal

Scott Hill, Ph.D. Candidate

703 Tupper St.

Santa Rosa, CA 95404

[email protected]

707-544-2428

Committee Members:

Sean Kelly, Ph.D., Committee Chair

Richard Tarnas, Ph.D., Committee Member

David Lukoff, Ph.D., External Committee Member

Philosophy, Cosmology, and Consciousness

Philosophy and Religion

California Institute of Integral Studies

San Francisco

Scott Hill Dissertation Proposal

Abstract

Given the notable references to Jungian psychology in the psychedelic literature, on

the one hand, and the lack of in-depth treatments of psychedelic experience from a Jungian

perspective, on the other, there is a clear need to develop a Jungian framework for

elucidating the nature of psychedelic experience. The framework I envision would

highlight the nature of short-term psychotic reactions to psychedelic experience. This

framework would also indicate implications for psychedelic psychotherapy as well as the

treatment of short-term psychotic reactions to psychedelic experiences.

The paucity of in-depth theoretical treatments of the relationship between Jungian

psychology and psychedelics can be attributed to a variety of reasons, most notably Jung’s

own criticism of the use of psychedelics. Although the problems Jung identifies should be

taken seriously, I see the value of looking beyond Jung’s dismissive critique to his

psychology in order to take advantage of its penetrating insights into the nature of

psychedelic experience. The relationship of Jung’s psychology to psychedelic experience

and psychedelic psychotherapy therefore are subjects ripe for scholarly investigation and

theoretical development. This dissertation is based on an in-depth examination of Jung’s

theoretical and clinical approach to the structure and dynamics of the psyche in general and

to trauma, psychosis, psychotherapy, and integration in particular.

This dissertation could make a significant contribution to transpersonal psychology

and Jungian psychology by employing a Jungian interpretation, or Jungian hermeneutics,

of psychedelic experience. This study could also improve the practice of psychedelic

psychotherapy and the treatment of psychedelic-induced disorders.

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Table of Contents

Abstract . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . i

Table of Contents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ii

Historical Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Early References to Jung’s Psychology in the Psychedelic Literature . . 1 Contemporary References to Jung’s Psychology in the Psychedelic Literature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Papers Relating Jungian Psychology to Psychedelic Experience . . . . . 3 The Need for a Jungian Framework For Understanding Psychedelic Experience . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Research Objectives, Scope and Limitations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Research Objectives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Scope and Limitations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

The Range of Psychedelic Experiences and Substances Treated . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 The Psychological Nature of Psychedelic Experience . . . . . . . 8 The Tentative Nature of My Jungian Framework . . . . . . . . . . . 8 The Hypothetical Nature of the Proposed Jungian Guidelines . . 9 The Limited Scope of the Proposed Jungian Guidelines . . . . . 9 My Approach to Trauma . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 The Scope of Jung’s Work Treated . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

Literature Review . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 Psychedelics and Trauma . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

Psychedelically-Induced Trauma . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 Psychedelic Psychotherapy as Treatment for Trauma . . . . . . . 11 Traumatic Psychedelic Experiences and Childhood Trauma: A Jungian Link . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

Psychedelics and Psychosis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 Psychedelics as Psychosis-Inducing Substances . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

Psychedelic-Induced Psychotic States and Schizophrenia Compared . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 Criticism of the Psychotomimetic Model . . . . . . . . . . . 13 The Psychotomimetic Model Reconsidered . . . . . . . . . 14

Psychedelics, Psychosis, and Trauma: The Transformative Potential . . 15 The Transformative Potential of Psychedelics . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 The Transformative Potential of Psychotic States . . . . . . . . . . 18 Psychedelics, Psychosis, and Transformation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 Jung’s Approach to the Therapeutic Process of Integration . . . 21

The Therapeutic Value of Abreaction: Jung’s and Grof’s Views Compared . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

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Literature Review (cont.)

Psychedelics, Psychosis, and Trauma: The Transformative Potential (cont.)

Psychedelic Psychotherapy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 The Psycholytic and Psychedelic Models . . . . . . . . . . . 23 Therapeutic Frameworks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

Rationale and Plan for Completing the Literature Review . . . . . . . . . . 27 Significance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 Theoretical Perspective and Methodology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

Hermeneutics and Hermeneutical Attitude . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 Jungian Hermeneutics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32

Understanding and Explanation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33 Three Basic Elements of This Investigation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

Chapter Breakdown and Timeline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36

Tentative Outline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36 Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38

Tentative Timeline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 Research Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40

Primary Sources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40 Secondary Jungian Sources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40

References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42

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Historical Background

Early References to Jung’s Psychology in the Psychedelic Literature

The fact that Jung’s psychology has long been appreciated for the insights it

provides into the nature of psychedelic experience is well illustrated by the tribute Leary,

Metzner, and Alpert paid to Jung in their seminal manual, The Psychedelic Experience

(1995, pp. 19-25), which was first published in 1964 and was based on The Tibetan Book

of the Dead, to which Jung had written an appreciative commentary (1935/1953).

Leary et al. characterize Jung as a psychiatrist cum mystic who had credited The

Tibetan Book of the Dead for stimulating many of his own ideas, insights, and discoveries

(1995, pp. 20-21, 23). In their eyes, by the later part of his life, Jung had committed

himself wholly “to the inner vision and to the wisdom and superior reality of internal

perceptions” (ibid. p. 23). We can see why they would say this when we consider the

following observations that Jung made in his Psychological Commentary to The Tibetan

Book of the Great Liberation (1939/1954). The conscious mind, in Jung’s view, naturally

resists the emergence of what it experiences as, in his words, “the intrusion of apparently

incompatible and extraneous tendencies, thoughts, feelings” (par. 779). The most startling

instances of such unacceptable intrusions, Jung notes, are found in schizophrenic patients

(ibid.). But in cases such as those illuminated in The Tibetan Book of the Great

Liberation, Jung adds, “it is tacitly agreed that the apparently incompatible contents shall

not be suppressed again, and that the conflict shall be accepted and suffered. At first no

solution appears possible, and this fact, too, has to be borne with patience” (par. 780).

The relevance of such observations by Jung to my thesis can be summarized as

follows: Jung’s conception of the ego’s terrifying but potentially transformative

confrontation with unacceptable elements of the unconscious provides a uniquely

valuable theoretical framework for understanding and defining the therapeutic benefits of

what initially appear to be only psychedelic-induced eruptions of irrational and even

psychosis-inducing content from the unconscious. The conscious, rational mind naturally

resists such content as overwhelmingly alien. Through proper therapeutic integration,

however, such content can become deeply meaningful and psychologically beneficial to

the individual.

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Contemporary References to Jung’s Psychology in the Psychedelic Literature

Notable contemporary theorists, who are also former practitioners of psychedelic

psychotherapy, continue to draw upon Jung’s insights. In her treatment of psychedelic-

assisted therapy, “The New Psychotherapy: MDMA and the Shadow” (2001), Ann

Shulgin discusses ways to work with the difficult process of facing the shadow, Jung’s

term for the personality’s dark side. Besides Stanislav Grof’s work, Shulgin recommends

the writings of Jung and Jungian psychiatrist John Weir Perry to people struggling to

integrate challenging psychedelic experiences (Shulgin & Shulgin, 1997, p. 161).

Resisting such difficult experiences, says former psychedelic therapist Myron

Stolaroff, intensifies their painfulness and leads to “disturbing, unsatisfactory

experiences, or even psychotic attempts to escape” (2002, p. 97). Like Shulgin, Stolaroff

draws upon Jungian concepts of the shadow and integration in his guidelines for working

through psychic defenses that arise when someone stumbles into a difficult psychedelic

experience (ibid., pp. 94-103; Stolaroff, 1994).

Shulgin’s and Stolaroff’s treatments of encountering and integrating problematic

unconscious material in psychedelic psychotherapy provide invaluable perspectives on

working through difficult psychedelic experiences. However, their mention of Jungian

concepts lacks any direct reference to Jungian sources, let alone thorough theoretical

articulation. Shulgin and Stolaroff were both influenced by underground psychedelic

therapist Leo Zeff, who was a Jungian analyst. The only record Zeff seems to have left of

his psychedelic psychotherapy practice, however, is a published interview Stolaroff

conducted with him (Stolaroff, 2004), which unfortunately contains no explicit discussion

of the relationship between Zeff’s Jungian foundation and his practice of psychedelic

psychotherapy.1

Among contemporary theorists of psychedelic psychotherapy who draw on Jung’s

psychology, only Ralph Metzner and Stanislav Grof discuss at any length the

correspondence between their own work and Jung’s psychology. And even though both

Metzner and Grof generously draw on Jung’s theories and clinical experience to support

1 I use the generic term psychedelic psychotherapy to refer to any use of psychedelic substances with psychotherapy. There are different types of psychedelic psychotherapy, however, and I discuss them in “Psychedelic Psychotherapy,” below (p.20).

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their own extensive theoretical frameworks (Grof, 1985, 1994; Grof & Grof, 1989;

Metzner, 1998b), neither provides an in-depth presentation of Jung’s psychology

vis-à-vis psychedelic experience.

Despite numerous departures from Jung’s theories (Grof, 1985, pp. 191-192),

Grof’s own comprehensive framework for psychedelic psychotherapy shares a far-

reaching correspondence with Jung’s theories (ibid., p. 191). One common theme, which

is central to my thesis, is the ego’s problematic and yet ultimately transformative

relationship with the collective, or archetypal, unconscious. In Spiritual Emergency:

When Personal Transformation Becomes a Crisis, Stanislav and Christina Grof state that

Jung’s revolutionary concept of the collective unconscious and his respect for the

spiritual dimensions of psychological development provide an essential theoretical

foundation for the transpersonal view of the psychotic characteristics of spiritual

emergency represented in their anthology (1989, pp. 5, 237; see also Grof, 1985, p. 174).

Grof’s spectrum approach to explaining the nature of various realms or levels of

nonordinary experience draws from several major psychological orientations, including

the work of Freud, Rank, and Reich. Grof finds in Jung’s psychology, however, the

deepest correspondence to the domains of psychic experience he has mapped in his own

cartography of the psyche (Grof, 1985, pp. 190-192). “Although even [Jung’s] analytical

psychology does not cover adequately the entire spectrum of psychedelic phenomena,”

Grof says, “it requires the least revisions or modifications of all the systems of depth

psychotherapy” (ibid, p. 190). Grof draws most heavily on Jung’s concept of the

collective unconscious to describe what Grof refers to as the transpersonal, or Jungian,

level of consciousness manifested in the complex process described in his own theoretical

framework (1994, pp. 296-297; 1985, pp. 131, 140-141).

Papers Relating Jungian Psychology to Psychedelic Experience

A number of notable papers relating Jung’s psychology to psychedelic experience

have been published. Sandison (1954), Cutner (1959), and Fordham (1963) discuss from

a Jungian standpoint clinical studies of psychedelic psychotherapy conducted in the

1950s. Sandison and Cutner speak of the therapeutic value of LSD-assisted

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psychotherapy,2 which each of them conducted as psychotherapists. Reviewing case

studies of LSD-assisted psychotherapy, Fordham cautions that the relatively passive

process of psychedelic psychotherapy must be distinguished from the active process of

Jungian analysis, that the lasting therapeutic value of the LSD experience is slight, and

that the strongest therapeutic agent in the cases he reviewed was the transference (p. 129).

I will of course discuss these rare and important Jungian papers in my dissertation’s full

literature review. While confirming my thesis regarding the relevance of Jungian

psychology to understanding psychedelic experience, these papers fall far short of

establishing a Jungian framework for such a purpose.

More recently, four doctoral candidates have written dissertations that analyze

various aspects of psychedelic experience from a Jungian perspective. Gurnick (1990)

analyzes variations in individuals’ subjective psychedelic experience in terms of Jung’s

psychological types in order to advance understanding of the relationship between

subjective psychedelic experience and the individual user’s personality makeup. Albert

(1993) draws from Jung’s concepts of the archetypal unconscious, constellation, and

synchronicity to support specific aspects of his broad metaphysical theory of

consciousness. Albert argues that Jung’s psychology can account for the role that psychic

dynamics play in psychedelic-induced experiences of spiritual, non-spatiotemporal

realities. Heuser (2006) analyzes reports of “entity visitations” (p. 4) by ayahuasca users

and relates his analysis to Jung’s psychology as well as Grof’s transpersonal model. He

proposes that Jung’s archetypal perspective provides useful metaphorical amplification of

the symbolic content reflected in these ayahuasca reports (p. 38) and that such symbolic

content may reflect stages in the individuation process (pp. 77-78). To support this

interpretation, Heuser briefly reviews the Jungian concepts of ego and Self, archetypes,

complexes, the unity of opposites, integration, abaissement du niveau mental,

participation mystique, the shadow, psychoid processes, the hero’s journey, and ego

defenses such as projection. Oxford (2004) uses the Jungian concept of individuation as a

theoretical framework for understanding modern, nonindigenous women’s experience of

spiritual awakening induced by entheogenic, or psychedelic, plant substances. Oxford, 2 LSD stands for lysergic acid dythilamide, “a crystalline compound . . . derived from lysergic acid and used as a powerful hallucinogenic drug” (American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 1996).

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like Heuser, contributes to a dialogue between Jungian and transpersonal psychology by

also drawing from Grof’s treatment of nonordinary states of consciousness.

Although all these dissertations interpret specific aspects of psychedelic

experience from a Jungian perspective, none of them investigate in depth how Jung’s

psychology elucidates the fundamental nature of psychedelic experience or the potential

of psychedelics to induce psychotic reactions. Only Heuser (2006) draws even

moderately from Jung’s primary sources; and although his analysis of psychedelic

experience vis-à-vis Jung’s psychology is broad, it lacks the depth necessary to establish

a Jungian framework for understanding the nature of psychedelic experience.

Howe’s (2008) dissertation, Integrating Theories of Stanislav Grof and C.G.

Jung, deepens the dialogue between Jungian and transpersonal psychology by, first,

comparing Grofian systems of condensed experience (COEX) and various Jungian

concepts of feeling-toned complexes; second, comparing Grofian and Jungian

interpretations of the death-rebirth process; and third, comparing Grofian and Jungian

approaches to psychotherapy. Although Howe draws much more thoroughly from Jung’s

primary sources than the other dissertation authors mentioned here, and although he

discusses Jung’s theory in terms of Grof’s psychedelic research, his treatment of

psychedelic experience per se is extremely limited. Rather, his analysis compares Grof’s

and Jung’s theories of the psyche’s structure and dynamics and therefore only implicitly

elucidates the nature of psychedelic experience.

As valuable as each of these dissertations is regarding various aspects of the

relationship between Jung’s psychology and psychedelic experience, none of them

provides a foundation for building a Jungian framework for understanding the

fundamental nature of psychedelic experience in general or of psychedelic-induced

psychotic states of consciousness in particular.

The Need for a Jungian Framework for Understanding Psychedelic Experience

The lack of in-depth treatment of the relationship between Jungian psychology

and psychedelic experience is partially due to the fact that the first generation of

psychedelic research in the 1950s and early 1960s was dominated by investigators, like

Grof at that time, with a Freudian psychoanalytic orientation. This psychoanalytic legacy

is reflected in the most recent authoritative work on psychedelic psychotherapy,

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Psychedelic Medicine: New Evidence for Hallucinogenic Substances as Treatments

(Winkelman & Roberts, 2007), which includes a psychoanalytic framework (as well as

shamanic and Grofian frameworks) for psychedelic psychotherapy but no Jungian

framework. Any interest in the Jungian community to develop a framework for

psychedelic psychotherapy has likely been inhibited by the ban imposed on psychedelic

research in the mid 1960s. Be that as it may, the paucity of references to psychedelic-

induced images or visions in the Jungian literature is remarkable. The main reason for

this curious lacuna is surely the distance Jungians have traditionally adopted to

psychedelics (Singer, 1994; von Franz, 1993), a distance that stems from Jung’s severe

criticism of psychedelic psychotherapy (von Franz, 1993, pp. 297-305).

An excellent reflection of Jung’s critical attitude toward psychedelics can be

found in his letters, several of which reflect his view that psychedelics have the potential

to open the collective unconscious to those who use them. He is quite critical of their use

for that reason, explaining that psychedelics are a shortcut into realms of the unconscious

for which the user is inevitably unprepared (Adler & Jung, 1975, p. 222). Jung also

conveys that, although he does not know from experience, he can suppose that

psychedelics could “release a latent, potential psychosis”(ibid.), adding that “it would be

a highly interesting though equally disagreeable experience” (ibid.). Jung expresses his

skepticism even more harshly in a letter to Victor White:

It is quite awful that the alienists have caught hold of a new poison to play with,

without the faintest knowledge or feeling of responsibility. It is just as if a

surgeon had never learned further than to cut open his patient’s belly and to leave

things there. (ibid., p. 173; see also pp. 229-230, 318-319, 382-383)

Although the problems Jung identifies should be taken seriously, I see the value

of looking beyond Jung’s dismissive critique to his psychology in order to take advantage

of its profound insights into the nature of psychedelic experience. I intend to do this by

investigating and discussing the concepts and principles in Jung’s psychology that are

most relevant to elucidating the nature of psychedelic experience for the purpose of

constructing a tentative Jungian framework for understanding the nature of psychedelic

experience.

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Research Objectives, Scope and Limitations

Research Objectives

Given my goals to carry out a Jungian interpretation of psychedelic experience, to

construct a tentative Jungian framework for understanding psychedelic experience, and to

propose basic considerations for a Jungian approach to treating psychedelic-induced

psychotic states, my dissertation’s specific research objectives are to elucidate the

following from a Jungian perspective:

1) the fundamental psychological nature of psychedelic experience

2) the nature of acute psychotic reactions to psychedelic experience

3) the consequent treatment implications of the above

The way in which I will accomplish these goals and objectives should become

clear in the following sections of this proposal. Before going further, however, I would

like to briefly define two basic terms. When I use the term framework, I mean a system of

concepts and principles used as a basis for interpreting, understanding, and explaining

phenomena and for guiding research and practice. The tentative Jungian framework I

envision would provide an initial basis for interpreting, understanding, and explaining the

nature of psychedelic experience, for guiding related research, and for guiding the

practice of psychedelic psychotherapy and the treatment of psychedelic-induced

psychotic states. This framework will be the result of my dissertation’s Jungian

interpretation of psychedelic experience, the tentative contents of which are outlined in

the Chapter Breakdown section, below (pp. 31-33).

When I speak of acute psychotic reactions to psychedelic experiences, I refer to a

subset of the conditions that Grof identifies as potential adverse reactions to psychedelic

psychotherapy. These include the intensification of preexisting psychiatric disorders, the

occurrence of new symptoms, and the subsequent recurrence of these problematic states

(1994, p. 153). Furthermore, Grof characterizes the psychotic style of confronting a

psychedelic experience as “exteriorization of the process, excessive use of the mechanism

of projection, and indiscriminate acting out” (1985, p. 303).

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Scope and Limitations

The Range of Psychedelic Experiences and Substances Treated

Given its astonishing variability, Grinspoon & Bakalar suggest that psychedelic

experience is as difficult to describe and classify as human experience itself (1997,

pp. 89-89). Such classic volumes as The Varieties of Psychedelic Experience (Masters &

Houston, 1966), LSD Psychotherapy (Grof, 1994), and Psychedelic Drugs Reconsidered

(Grinspoon & Bakalar, 1997) admirably attempt to describe psychedelic experience

comprehensively. I, however, will limit my study to a Jungian interpretation of the most

fundamental characteristics of psychedelic experience. Within Jung’s treatment of the

conscious mind’s relationship to the unconscious, especially the archetypal unconscious,

and his treatment of related concepts such as abaissement du niveau mental, complexes,

the shadow, psychosis, and integration, Jung offers an insightful understanding of the

fundamental effects that psychedelic drugs have on the psyche, including their potential

to induce psychotic reactions. This, then, will be the focus of my study.

The range of psychedelic substances is also vast, and even within the more limited

range represented in psychedelic research, a wide variety of substances have been used

(Multidisciplinary Association of Psychedelic Studies, 2008a). Although different

psychedelic drugs vary in their specific effects, as a class they affect the mind in similar

ways (Nelson, 1994, p. 149-150). I will focus on the fundamental psychological effects

that psychedelics share in common rather than treating their distinctive effects.

The Psychological Nature of Psychedelic Experience

Jung’s approach to the psyche is essentially psychological rather than

physiological (1928, pars. 497-498; see also 1958a, par. 570 ), and my study will be

limited to the psychological basis of psychedelic experience.

The Tentative Nature of My Jungian Framework

Given the original nature of my investigation and the vastness and complexity of

Jung’s psychology, I can only hope that the framework I construct in this dissertation will

provide a solid basis for ongoing refinements and improvements by myself and others. It

would be unrealistic and indeed undesirable to view the results of my present efforts as

complete, much less conclusive.

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The Hypothetical Nature of the Proposed Jungian Guidelines

Although an initial Jungian interpretation of psychedelic experience can be

accomplished within the scope of this dissertation, verification of the proposed treatment

implications of my study must await formal clinical trails and, as Merkur suggests in

relation to his psychoanalytic framework (2007, p. 198), must await confirmation through

trial-and-error application in psychotherapy with individuals.

The Limited Scope of the Proposed Jungian Guidelines

I do not intend to propose a comprehensive set of guidelines for Jungian

psychedelic psychotherapy. I will only supplement existing guidelines, such as those

found in Winkelman and Roberts’ Psychedelic Medicine (2007) and in the

Multidisciplinary Association of Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) Rites of Passage Project

(2008b), by suggesting specific treatment implications that stem from a Jungian

interpretation of psychedelic experience.

My Approach to Trauma

There is an extensive body of work on the nature and treatment of trauma.

Beyond very briefly establishing the context for my discussion of trauma in my

dissertation’s literature review, I will discuss trauma entirely in Jungian terms. Within

these limits, I will investigate trauma in relation to psychedelics by considering 1)

difficult psychedelic experiences as traumatic experiences in their own right, and 2) the

therapeutic implications of the potential psychedelics have to bring past trauma to

consciousness.

The Scope of Jung’s Work Treated

As indicated in my research bibliography’s primary sources, below (p. 35), I will

focus on Jung’s core treatment of trauma, psychosis, psychotherapy, integration, and the

structure and dynamics of the psyche. Although I may occasionally refer incidentally to

any topic within Jung’s extensive body of work, my investigation of Jung’s psychology

will not address in any significant way his amplification of these central themes through

his extensive inquiry into religion, mythology, alchemy, or astrology, all of which I see as

important subjects for further inquiry following the completion of my dissertation.

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Literature Review

Psychedelics and Trauma

The relationship between psychedelics and trauma is a fascinatingly complex one

that brings to mind the proverbial power of fire to create as well as destroy. On the one

hand, psychedelic drugs have damaged many a naive and careless user. On the other

hand, when used respectfully and responsibly, psychedelic drugs have for centuries been

uniquely effective agents for healing and psychospiritual transformation (Grob, 2002a;

Winkelman & Roberts, 2007). Currently, there is a resurgence of empirical research into

the psychotherapeutic effectiveness of psychedelics, thanks in large part to the tireless

advocacy for government-approved research by public policy organizations like the

Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, which documents international

psychedelic research on its website (2008a). A recent Scientific American Mind review of

current research notes that “studies are focusing on psychedelic treatments for cluster

headaches, depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), severe anxiety in terminal

cancer patients, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), alcoholism and opiate addiction”

(Brown, 2007/2008, p. 68).

Psychedelic-Induced Trauma

Psychedelic experiences can be traumatic in their own right, as suggested by the

counterculture term “bad trips,” or difficult psychedelic experiences, and as indicated by

long-established contraindications and safeguards for the responsible practice of

psychedelic psychotherapy (Cohen, 1967, p. 208 ff.; Frecska, 2007; Grof, 1994, pp.

151-154). Even difficult psychedelic experiences can have beneficial effects, however.

As the saying goes, bad trips can be the best trips, and current psychedelic literature tends

to view difficult psychedelic experiences as opportunities for psychological insight and

growth rather than intrinsically traumatic experiences (Bravo and Grob, 1996a, p. 340).3

Such optimistic views are a reflection of the great number of successfully

resolved psychedelic emergencies (Grof, 1994, pp. 314-316; Mojeiko, 2007, p. 15) as

well as the psychedelic community’s guarded posture vis-à-vis adverse reactions to

3 I anticipate that my dissertation will distinguish more clearly traumatic psychedelic experiences from difficult ones.

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psychedelics in the wake of exaggeratedly negative characterizations of these drugs in the

mainstream media since the 1960s. Given the potential for psychedelic drugs to induce

extraordinary degrees of emotional stress and even psychotic reactions of varying

intensity and duration, however, there should be no question that psychedelic experiences

can be truly traumatic (Blewett & Chwelos, 1959; Cohen, 1967, pp. 266-277; Grof, 1994,

pp. 151, 160, 310-311).

Psychedelic Psychotherapy as Treatment for Trauma

The relationship between psychedelics and trauma is usually discussed in terms of

the potential psychedelics have to bring past trauma to conscious awareness by

overcoming defenses against treatment and resistance to trauma-based memories and

feelings (Bastiaans, 1983; Grob, 2002b, p. 273; Grof, 1994, p. 28). Grof’s observations

from extensive psychedelic psychotherapy research clearly indicate the extraordinary

potential psychedelics have to facilitate insights and healing through reliving past

traumatic experiences (1994, pp. 30, 36, 74, 105, 207, 282, 285). Grof attributes the great

success he and his colleagues have had using LSD (lysergic acid diethylamide) for

treating a wide range of trauma-induced disorders to LSD’s unique properties as an

abreactive agent (ibid., p. 250); and he frequently encourages therapists, whether

conducting psychedelic psychotherapy or non-drug forms of experiential psychotherapy,

to facilitate the free flow of energy and the completion of experiential gestalts—no matter

how challenging the content of those experiences—because in his view this difficult

process is inherently healing (1985, p. 381; 1994, p. 282).

Traumatic Psychedelic Experiences and Childhood Trauma: A Jungian Link

I have discovered striking parallels between threatening psychedelic-induced

images and the “archaic defenses” that Jungian psychologist Donald Kalsched has seen in

victims of childhood trauma. Kalsched (1996) has found that in response to the

unbearable pain of severe trauma, the personality can split to create an autonomous

persecutory figure, which emerges in dreams and fantasies as personified archetypal

daimonic images and which paradoxically acts to protect the personality by attacking it

(Kalsched, 1996, p. 2; Mogenson, 2005, p. 202). Kalsched’s thesis suggests that some

terrifying psychedelic-induced imagery (demons, satanic figures, and similar archetypal

figures) could be manifestations of psychic dissociations arising from past trauma.

11


Psychedelics and Psychosis

Psychedelics as Psychosis-Inducing Substances

Our understanding of the relationship between psychedelic-induced psychotic

states and endogenous, or “natural,” psychosis has changed as researchers have become

more knowledgeable about the psychological effects of psychedelics. In the early 1950s,

the relationship between psychedelic experience and natural psychosis was assumed to be

so strong that the mode of investigation into the psychological effects of psychedelics

was referred to as “psychotomimetic” (psychosis-inducing or psychosis-mimicking)

because these drugs were thought to evoke a temporary “model psychosis.” And they

were thereby thought to establish a new model for understanding the biological basis of

mental illness, especially schizophrenia (Bravo and Grob, 1996a, p. 335; Grinspoon &

Bakalar, 1997, p. 6; Grob, 2002b, p. 268; Grof, 1994, p. 24).

Psychedelic-induced psychotic states and schizophrenia compared.

Harvard psychiatrist Max Rinkel summarized the psychotomimetic concept when

he concluded that “the psychotic phenomena produced were predominantly

schizophrenic-like symptoms” (quoted in Grob, 2002b, p. 271). In Psychedelic Drugs

Reconsidered (1997, pp. 245-246), Grinspoon and Bakalar outline the grounds on which

psychedelic-induced psychotic states can be compared to natural psychosis. Generally

speaking, such psychedelic states are compared with schizophrenia. Despite great

variations among schizophrenics, they share certain common characteristics such as an

abnormal sense of reality and the attribution of inappropriate meanings to situations. The

common characteristics among schizophrenics are then used as a basis for comparison to

the common characteristics among psychedelic-induced psychotic states.

Among the several classifications of schizophrenia, the most important distinction

for the purpose of comparison with psychedelic-induced psychosis is the distinction made

between acute, or reactive (short-term), and chronic schizophrenia. The consensus in the

field is that the strongest correlation is found between psychedelic-induced psychosis and

acute schizophrenia, which Grinspoon and Bakalar characterize as having “a relatively

sudden onset . . . , often in a previously normal person, [which] often ends in full

recovery after a period of several days to several months, although it may recur” (1997,

p. 245). Lukoff refers to such abrupt and relatively short-term experiences as psychotic

12


episodes with mystical features or spiritual emergencies with psychotic features (1996, p.

272). The distinction between acute and chronic psychosis is an important one for my

study of psychedelic-induced psychosis. Although I often use the term psychosis

interchangeably with the term psychotic states, and although the literature I have

reviewed often does the same, the focus of my study is on relatively temporary

psychedelic-induced psychotic states and not on chronic psychosis brought on by

psychedelics.

Having distinguished acute from chronic schizophrenia, Grinspoon and Bakalar’s

review of the relevant scholarly literature revealed a “startling resemblance between

schizophrenic and psychedelic experience” (1997, p. 248). A number of papers “find the

effects of psychedelic drugs and the symptoms of schizophrenia to be almost the same”

(ibid.) “It is not surprising,” Grinspoon and Bakalar conclude, “that psychedelic drugs

were long regarded as a potential tool of special value in the study of endogenous

psychosis” (ibid.).

They add, however, that psychedelic-induced psychosis also differs in significant

respects from schizophrenia (Grinspoon & Bakalar, 1997, p. 248). In the late 1950s and

early 1960s, after many studies comparing psychedelic experience with psychosis, most

researchers concluded that although there are symptomatic resemblances, the clinical

syndrome of psychosis as a whole is significantly different than psychedelic-induced

psychosis (Hollister, 1968, p. 122; see also Bravo and Grob, 1996a, p. 335; Grinspoon

and Bakalar, 1997, pp. 6, 248-249; Grof, 1994, p. 25). In his review of the

psychotomimetic research model, Grob notes that the central argument against that model

was forcefully articulated in 1959 by Manfred Bleuler. Bleuler argued that schizophrenia

is characterized by “the gradual and inexorable progression of a symptom complex that

included disturbed thought processes, depersonalization and auditory hallucinations,

evolving into a generalized functional incapacitation” (Grob, 2002b, p. 271).

Criticism of the psychotomimetic model.

As higher doses of psychedelics (usually 200 micrograms of LSD or more) were

tested in therapeutic applications, successful treatments became associated with

experiences of psychedelic-induced mystical states of consciousness. Many researchers

thereby discovered that psychedelics could do much more than induce temporary

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psychoses, and the term psychedelic (“mind manifesting,” or “mind-revealing”) was

coined by Humphry Osmond to indicate that these substances could induce life-

enhancing visions and transformative experiences as well as pathological states (Grob,

2002b, p. 274-275; Grof, 1994, p. 24). The chemical psychosis model became

discredited, then, because it promoted a reductionistic view of the psychedelic experience

as an inherently pathological state and offered simplistic explanations of the biochemical

etiology of schizophrenia, which were not convincingly supported by empirical data

(Grof, 1994, p. 25).

The psychotomimetic model reconsidered.

Although issues with the psychotomimetic model are important and deserve to be

addressed, the problematic nature of the psychotomimetic paradigm does not invalidate

the need to inquire into the relationship between psychedelic experience and psychosis

for the purpose of dealing with certain psychedelic crises. Many important questions

about the relationship between psychedelic experience and psychotic states remain

unanswered (Grinspoon and Bakalar, 1997, p. 6), and some investigators renewed

investigation into that relationship in the 1980s (Fischman, 1983).

Despite good reasons for abandoning the psychotomimetic model, I think that a

reexamination of the parallels between psychedelic-induced psychotic states and natural

psychosis is worthwhile for reasons other than those traditionally advocated. To begin

with, as Grinspoon and Bakalar say, “the similarities between some kinds of psychedelic

experiences and some forms of schizophrenia, remain impressive despite the

divergences” (1997, p. 249). And Nelson notes that although theorists have abandoned

psychedelics as a model for psychosis because the psychedelic experience differs greatly

from chronic schizophrenia, the first stages of an acute psychosis show an unmistakable

resemblance to a psychedelic experience (1994, p. 150). Grinspoon and Bakalar conclude

their treatment of psychedelics and psychosis by saying:

Psychedelic experiences should not be identified with an acute endogenous psychosis, especially if the purpose is either to glorify psychotics or to denounce drug users. But it would also be a mistake to ignore the similarities. As we have seen, the overlap in symptoms is often striking, the causes might yet turn out to be related, and there might even be implications for treatment. (1997, p. 252)

14


I think we should utilize knowledge that has been gained from the

psychotomimetic model of research to increase our understanding of psychedelic-induced

psychotic states. Whereas the psychotomimetic paradigm used psychedelics to find clues

to the nature, causes, and treatment of endogenous psychosis, we can in effect turn the

chemical psychosis paradigm on its head. That is, we can use knowledge about the

similarities between natural psychosis and psychedelic-induced psychotic states as well

as knowledge about the nature, causes, and treatment of natural psychosis to provide

clues to the nature, causes, and treatment of psychotic reactions to psychedelic

experiences.

The tentative conclusion I come to in my review of the literature on psychedelics

and psychosis is that, although I need to be careful not to assume overly general parallels

between psychedelic-induced psychotic states and endogenous psychosis, there is

substantial reason to speak of acute psychotic states as one category of psychedelic

experience and to draw cautious comparisons between psychedelic-induced psychotic

states and acute schizophrenia. I am certainly not suggesting that psychedelic experience

is inherently psychotic. Nor am I saying that psychedelic-induced psychotic states are

inevitably harmful. The fact that I plan to investigate the beneficial as well as harmful

potential of psychedelic-induced psychotic states should indicate my intention to

objectively investigate such states.

Psychedelics, Psychosis, and Trauma: The Transformative Potential

Transformation is treated variously in the psychedelic literature that I have

reviewed as psychological or spiritual change, development, and healing.4 Many sources

suggest, implicitly if not explicitly, that psychological and spiritual development are both

integrally related aspects of psychedelic and therapeutic experience (e.g., Grob, 2002a;

Grof, 1994; Lukoff, Lu, & Turner, 1996; Lukoff, Zanger, & Lu, 1990; Roberts, 2001;

Stolaroff, 1994; Winkelman & Roberts, 2007). Although my discussion of transformation

will at times emphasize psychological development and will at other times emphasize

spiritual development, I do not make hard and fast distinctions between the two. I am

agnostic about the metaphysical nature of spiritual experiences and domains, and I

4 Parsing transform into trans as beyond or change and form as structure or essence, I generally think of transformation as a fundamental change in one’s personality structure.

15


therefore use the term psychospiritual transformation because I accept the change I

discuss as psychological or spiritual in nature, or as some indefinable blend of both.

In this regard, I find Jung’s psychology, with its phenomenological treatment of religious

experience, a profoundly insightful and useful guide to the psychospiritual forces that

have affected my life for so many years. In Shadow, Self, Sprit: Essays in Transpersonal

Psychology, Daniels notes Jung’s refusal to draw metaphysical conclusions from

psychological experience (2005, pp. 225); and he concludes, appropriately I think, that

transpersonal psychologists should “bracket as far as possible ALL metaphysical

assumptions in what should essentially become a phenomenological examination of

experiences of transformation” free of belief and interpretation (p. 230).

The idea of transformation runs all through Jung’s work (Samuels, Shorter, &

Plaut, 1986, p. 151). Quite generally, Jung’s concept of transformation can be

characterized as a psychological transition involving temporary regression and ego loss

as unconscious material becomes conscious in the ongoing process of a person’s

becoming more psychologically whole (ibid.). Although Jung was careful to discuss

spirituality in psychological terms, and although most of his work takes an agnostic

stance towards extrapsychic realities (Ferrer, 2002, pp. 44-45), his concept of

transformation is inherently related to what he conceived as the psyche’s “religious

function” (Samuels et al., 1986, p. 130; see also Corbett, 1996, and Edinger, 1992). In

Psychology and Religion (1938/1966), Jung characterized religion as “the attitude

peculiar to a consciousness which has been altered by experience of the numinosum”

(p. 6). For Jung it is an elementary truth that “the God-image corresponds to a definite

complex of psychological facts, and is thus a quantity which we can operate with; but

what God is in himself remains a question outside the competence of all psychology”

(1948, par. 528). Even though Jung is adamant about the fundamental role that the psyche

plays in religious experience, his agnosticism regarding supernatural realities by

definition neither denies nor affirms them (Hill, 2007b, p. 14).

The Transformative Potential of Psychedelics

Psychedelic drugs have been used for religious purposes since prehistoric times,

and traditional shamanic practices with psychedelic substances provide a context for

using psychedelics in psychotherapy (Goldsmith, 2007, p. 108; Grob, 2002a, Schultes &

16


Hofmann, 1992; Weil, 1986; Winkelman, 2007b, pp. 2-3; Wulff, 1997, p. 90). According

to Dobkin de Rios and Winkelman, many contemporary shamanic practitioners maintain

that psychedelics repeatedly bring about changes in people’s perception of reality that

lead to a spiritual sense of oneness with the universe (1989,

p. 4). Probably millions of individuals have had psychedelic experiences that have left

them with the conviction that they understood the nature of mystical experiences known

otherwise only by venerated religious sages (Grinspoon and Bakalar, 1997, pp. 86-88).

And finally, the transformative potential of psychedelics is supported by the assessment

of researchers who observed and analyzed tens of thousands of psychedelic sessions in

experimental and clinical studies in the 1950s and 1960s (Walsh & Grob, 2007).

Although many of those studies would not meet current empirical standards, and

therefore must be accepted tentatively awaiting further clinical research, say Walsh and

Grob, their interviews with these original researchers show that “the number, variety, and

extent of transformations that these researchers describe are dramatic” (ibid., p. 218).

Because the transformative nature of psychedelics is usually understood as a

significant, long-term psychological or spiritual change in a person’s life, we must

distinguish between profound but temporary psychospiritual experiences and experiences

that result in enduring changes in one’s personality, attitudes, world view, and behavior

(Bravo & Grob, 1996b, p. 181; Smith, 2000). Speaking in spiritual terms in his 1964

Journal of Philosophy essay “Do Drugs Have Religious Import?,” Huston Smith argues

convincingly that we must distinguish between psychedelic-induced religious experiences

and psychedelic-inspired religious lives (2000, p. 305). In his long-term follow-up study

to the Good Friday Experiment on psychedelic-induced mystical experience, Doblin used

similar standards for evaluating the religious significance of subjects’ experience. Doblin

characterizes these standards as “persisting positive effects” (2001, p. 74).

The actual duration of such transformative effects continues to be a matter of

debate in the field. Representing those who question the lasting value of psychedelic

transformations, Goldsmith suggests that even when psychedelics are proven to be

therapeutically effective, their benefits are not permanent (2007, p. 113). Stolaroff, on the 5 Smith’s essay was reprinted as a chapter in his Cleansing the Doors of Perception: The Religious Significance of Entheogenic Plants and Chemicals (2000). See also “Psychedelic Theophanies and the Religious Life,” Chapter 3, in the same book.

17


other hand, summarizes the individual and collective potential for transformation that

many advocates see, when he says that “psychedelics, used with good motivation, skill,

and integrity, can contribute much toward easing the pain and suffering of the world

while giving access to wisdom and compassion for spiritual development” (2002, p. 103).

Grinspoon and Bakalar observe in their review of the literature on psychedelic research

that although psychedelics are no longer seen as the key to changing the world, many

people retain a strong sense of possibilities not yet realized, “of something felt as

intensely real and not yet explained or explained away” (1997, p. 88).

The Transformative Potential of Psychotic States

Even though Jung always regarded schizophrenia as a mental disorder, he was the

first to recognize it as the psyche’s effort to heal itself and as a pathology amenable to

psychotherapy (Perry, 1999, p. 63). Jung started to recognize the healing potential of

acute psychotic episodes as early as 1914 (Perry, 1976. pp. 11-12), and one finds traces

of this insight as early as 1911 in his views on the nature and value of dreams (Jung,

1911-1912). In his essay “The Importance of the Unconscious in Psychotherapy”

(1914b), Jung describes the compensating function of the unconscious, a balancing of

conscious tendencies that plays out in so-called normal people and psychotics alike. “In

normal people the principal function of the unconscious is to effect a compensation and

to produce a balance” (ibid., par. 449), he says. “[Such] manifestations of the

unconscious in actually insane patients are just as clear, but are not so well recognized”

(ibid., par. 452). These unconscious, corrective manifestations in the mind of the

psychotic are not so readily recognized, Jung observed, because they typically present

themselves in a form that ego consciousness—in doctor and patient alike—finds

intolerably disturbing. The unfortunate consequence of such disturbing manifestations is

the too-common obstruction of what should be, in Jung’s view, “the beginning of the

healing process” (ibid., pars. 458, 465).

As Jung says in “The Structure of the Psyche,” we need to remember “the

fundamental principle that the symptomatology of an illness is at the same time a natural

attempt at healing” (1927/1931, par. 312). Jung encourages us, that is, to look at the

psychotic’s delusions without prejudice and to appreciate that through them the

individual is in fact attempting with all his or her might to bring something to completion

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(Jung, 1914a, par. 410). Jung distinguishes the content of his patients’ delusions from

their confusion of that content with reality, and he maintains that such delusions are not

in themselves pathological. They are subjectively valid and therefore justifiable within

subjective limits (ibid., par. 412).

If the therapist can engage in an authentic, caring way with the patient and the

patient’s inner experience, the therapist may be able to see a deeply meaningful process

in what at first appears to be only a fragmented picture of strange ideas, says Jungian

psychotherapist Perry (1999). And with the support of an enlightened and engaged

therapist, the patient may be able to make the critical turn from projecting this process

onto the world to recognizing it as an expression of his or her own unconscious. If this is

possible, healing can begin (ibid., pp. 23-26, 71; see also Lukoff, 1996).

We need to ask, however, whether bringing images, delusions, and projections to

consciousness, even under the guidance of a sensitive and skillful therapist, is sufficient

for individuals struggling with the deeply disturbing material manifested in psychotic

states. To begin with, we need to understand Jung’s explanation of the psychological

process involved in such healing. We also require a more specific and complete

explanation of how such general principles are applied in the practice of psychotherapy. I

introduce these topics in the section on Jung’s approach to integration, below (p. 18).

Psychedelics, Psychosis, and Transformation

Given the great quantity of literature on the relationship between psychedelics and

psychosis, and the great quantity of literature on the relationship between psychedelics

and transformation, it is notable that relatively little literature looks at all three

elements—psychedelics, psychosis, and transformation—together. There are notable

exceptions to this rule, however.

Although he is open to criticism for romanticizing psychosis, R.D. Laing

promoted the view that psychosis is “a harrowing but revelatory and potentially

restorative mental journey with some of the same virtues as an LSD experience”

(Grinspoon and Bakalar, 1997, p. 6). Like Jungian psychotherapist Perry, Laing views

psychosis as a potential psychospiritual breakthrough, not simply a breakdown (Laing,

1979, p. 115).

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Transpersonal psychologist David Lukoff appreciates Perry’s view of acute

psychosis “as a renewal process in which the psyche is seeking to reorganize itself

fundamentally” (Lukoff, 1996, p. 271). Lukoff writes of his own “hallucinogen-induced

psychotic disorder” that began in 1971 when he was twenty-three years old (ibid., p. 278;

Lukoff, 1991). Lukoff describes what he calls his “shamanistic initiatory crisis” (1991,

p. 28) and the long process through which he was able “to integrate [his] psychotic

episode as a transformative transpersonal experience” (1996, p. 279). Lukoff went on to

develop new and valuable forms of transpersonal psychotherapy for what he calls

“psychotic disorders and spiritual emergencies with psychotic features” (1996).

Two important figures in the history of psychedelics, Ralph Metzner and Ram

Dass (formally Richard Alpert), have both dedicated their lives to realizing the

transformative potential of the psychedelic experience. And both view the experience of

psychotic states as a common element in the psychedelic experience. As Metzner puts it,

the potential for psychedelic drugs to “trigger hellish, psychotic-like trips is so well

known that they were first referred to as psychotomimetic” (1998b, p. 81). Metzner

explains, nevertheless, that when individuals experiencing a psychedelic-triggered

psychosis can yield to the recognition that they are involved in a transitional process that

has a definite purpose or “end,” they come to regard such experiences “as a necessary

purgation, accepted—even welcomed—for their transformative power” (ibid., pp. 81-82).

Ram Dass, speaking to therapists at the Menninger Clinic in the early 1970s about an

alternative framework for understanding psychosis, and alluding to insights arising from

psychedelic experience, explains that “the journey of consciousness is to go to the place

where you see that all [the different realities] are really relative [and] merely perceptual

vantage points for looking at it all” (1979, p. 129). “You have to be able to go in and out

of all of them, that any one you get stuck in is the wrong one” ( ibid.).

Transpersonal psychologist Stanislav Grof’s attitude toward psychosis was

radically influenced by his extensive psychedelic research. “In the light of LSD

psychotherapy and other powerful experiential approaches,” he says, “the concept of

psychosis will have to be dramatically revised and reevaluated” (1985, p. 315). Grof

belongs to the school of psychological thought that sees the positive potential in the

psychotic process (1985, p. 295). If properly understood, Grof asserts, the psychotic

20


process can result in personal and collective transformation (ibid.). From this theoretical

perspective, Grof suggests that it is even appropriate to use psychedelics to “intensify and

accelerate the [psychotic] process and bring it to a positive resolution” (ibid., p. 296).

Jung’s Approach to the Therapeutic Process of Integration

We find an excellent indication of Jung’s view of the psychological process

involved in healing and transformation in his essay “The Transcendent Function”

(1916/1957). Here Jung presents a theoretical foundation for the integration of activated

unconscious material, a process that essentially involves bringing it into what he calls a

constructive or synthetic relationship to consciousness. This process is usually mediated

by an analyst for the patient, but it can also be done independently, as Jung did for

himself (Jung, 1963, chap. 6). By bringing together the opposites, as Jung expresses it,

the unconscious can more effectively compensate the one-sided tendencies of

consciousness, thereby creating an awareness that embraces, and thus “transcends,” both

(Perry, 1999. p. 69). The meaning and value of unconscious contents, Jung says, “are

revealed only through their integration into the personality as a whole” (1916/1957,

Prefatory Note, p. 67).

In describing the transcendent function, Jung asks a fundamental therapeutic

question that is central to integrating difficult psychedelic experiences: “What kind of

mental and moral attitude is it necessary to have towards the disturbing influences of the

unconscious, and how might they be conveyed to the patient?” (1916/1957, par. 144).

The answer for Jung is an appreciation of the inseparable relationship between

consciousness and the unconscious and the recognition of the value of unconscious

compensation. Ideally, the analyst, from his or her own experience of integration,

mediates the transcendent function for the patient and thereby helps the patient “bring

conscious and unconscious together and so arrive at a new attitude” (ibid.).

Jung explains that this method is based on evaluating symbols from the

unconscious, which he sees as “the best possible expression for a complex fact not yet

clearly apprehended by consciousness” (1916/1957, par. 148). For Jung, unconscious

material (such as a dream) transmits symbolic expression to consciousness (ibid., par.

152f.), which must in turn integrate what it experiences as its opposite aspect in order to

heal. To come to terms with the unconscious, says Jung, it is essential that the ego and the

21


unconscious come into a reciprocal relationship. “The position of the ego must be

maintained as being of equal value to the counter-position of the unconscious, and vice

versa” (ibid., par. 183).

According to Jung, such treatment renews the whole personality and penetrates

every aspect of one’s life. It means that the unconscious must be taken seriously so that it

can cooperate with consciousness—instead of disturbing it (1916/1957, par. 184). This

process becomes a kind of constructive confrontation that “generates a tension charged

with energy and creates a living, third thing. . . . So long as these [opposites] are kept

apart—naturally for the purpose of avoiding conflict—they do not function and remain

inert” (ibid., par. 189).

“Consciousness is continually widened through the confrontation with previously

unconscious contents, or—to be more accurate—could be widened if it took the trouble

to integrate them,” concludes Jung (1916/1957, par. 193). With sufficient guidance by the

therapist and with intelligence, self-confidence, and will-power on the part of the patient,

the transcendent function gives one “a way of attaining liberation by one’s own efforts

and of finding the courage to be oneself” (ibid.).

The therapeutic value of abreaction: Jung’s and Grof’s views compared.

We find another indication of Jung’s approach to integration in “The Therapeutic

Value of Abreaction” (1921/1928). In this essay, Jung criticizes the use of abreaction, or

“the dramatic rehearsal of the traumatic moment [and] its emotional recapitulation” as a

technique for treating trauma (ibid., par. 262). For Jung, the essential factor in trauma “is

the dissociation of the psyche and not the existence of a highly charged affect” (ibid., par.

266). “The main therapeutic problem,” Jung says, “is not abreaction but how to integrate

the dissociation” (ibid.).

Despite the significant compatibility between Jung’s psychology and Grof’s

approach to psychedelic psychotherapy, Grof and Jung hold intriguingly different views

of the value of abreaction. Grof highly values abreaction as an important component of

LSD psychotherapy, and he attributes the failure of abreaction reported in the psychiatric

literature to its limited and unsystematic use, to its not having been carried to experiential

extremes, which he says usually leads to a successful resolution (1985, p. 381).

22


Both Grof’s abreactive approach and Jung’s integrative approach to treating

trauma would seem to have great value in understanding the nature and transformative

potential of the psychedelic experience. Given Grof’s assessment that the correct use of

abreaction usually leads to a successful resolution, it seems that psychedelic therapists

and therapists treating adverse reactions to psychedelics would benefit by considering

Jung’s integrative approach as either a complement or alternative to abreaction.

Psychedelic Psychotherapy

The psycholytic and psychedelic models.

Researchers typically identify two major models of psychedelic psychotherapy:

psycholytic and psychedelic therapies. Although this is a common and useful distinction,

the two therapies should not be reduced to an irreconcilable dichotomy because they

share common features and goals (Grof, 1994, pp. 115-116) and because many

combinations of the two have evolved in practice (Grinspoon & Bakalar, 1997, p. 196).

Early experimentation at Sandoz laboratories in the late 1940s, following Albert

Hofmann’s personal experiences with LSD, indicated that relatively small amounts of

LSD could facilitate the release of repressed unconscious material in a psychotherapeutic

setting (Grob, 2002b, p. 273; Grinspoon and Bakalar, 1997, p. 194). The term psycholytic

was coined to describe this “low-dose” model. The term’s root, lytic, which is derived

from the Greek lysis for loosen or dissolve, refers to the release of tensions by dissolving

psychological conflicts and defenses (Grof, 1994, p. 35). The low doses used in

psycholytic therapy also allow individuals to become aware of unconscious content

without overwhelming their ability to reflect and communicate (Bravo and Grob, 1996a,

p. 336). “By facilitating ego regression, uncovering early childhood memories, and

inducing an affective release,” Grob notes, “psychiatrists claimed to have achieved a

breakthrough in reducing the duration and improving the outcome of psychotherapeutic

treatment” (Grob, 2002b, pp. 273-274). Psycholytic therapy typically focuses on the

personal unconscious and avoids the transpersonal realms of the collective unconscious

(Bravo and Grob, 1996a, p. 336), and it tends to rely more on verbal psychotherapy

within psychedelic-assisted sessions as well as in non-drug preparatory and follow-up

sessions (Abramson, 1967, p. xi).

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When higher doses started to be used, the resulting experiences tended to be

different, and a new model was developed. Initially conceived as a method of treating

alcoholics by replicating the terrifying yet occasionally transformative hallucinatory

experiences of the delirium tremens typical of alcohol withdrawal, Osmond and Hoffer

administered high-dose sessions that led to some surprising results. Contrary to their

expectations, they found that what distinguished successful treatment was the experience

of psychedelic-induced mystical states of consciousness (Hoffer, 1970, p. 360). Osmond

coined the term psychedelic (Huxley, 1999, p. 107), which means “mind manifesting,”

“mind-revealing,” or “mind-opening” (Grinspoon & Bakalar, 1997, p. 8; Grof, 1994,

p. 24; Metzner, 1998a) to distance their new approach from the traditional

psychotomimetic model. In high-dose psychedelic therapy, the psychedelic experience

itself, an extraordinarily overwhelming experience independent of verbal psychotherapy,

is considered to be the potentially significant therapeutic agent (Abramson, 1967, p. xi;

Buckman, 1967, p. 99; Ditman & Bailey, 1967, p. 75).

Grof’s extensive theoretical work notwithstanding, Grinspoon and Bakalar

suggest that the theoretical basis for the effectiveness of psychedelic therapy is less

developed than the theoretical basis for the effectiveness of psycholytic therapy (1997,

p. 194), which is in effect an extension of the therapist’s underlying psychotherapeutic

orientation. (Psycholytic therapy traditionally has a psychoanalytic orientation. See, for

instance, Leuner, 1983, and House, 2007, p. 185). The often overwhelming experience of

psychedelic therapy potentially brings about an ego-dissolving mystical experience that

drastically changes one’s perception of oneself and the world. Like the non-drug-induced

spiritual conversions that these experiences resemble, such effects are notoriously

resistant to theoretical explanation (Grinspoon & Bakalar, 1997, pp. 194-195).

My dissertation will interpret these two models of psychedelic psychotherapy in

terms of Jungian concepts and principles.

Therapeutic frameworks.

Because most theorists see psychedelics as adjuncts to psychotherapy rather than

healing agents in their own right, the therapeutic value of psychedelics is generally

assumed to be significantly affected if not wholly determined by the nature of the

therapy, the quality of the therapist, and the depth of integration and implementation of

24


the experience (Buckman, 1967, p. 88; Bravo and Grob, 1996a, p. 337; House, 2007,

pp. 179-184; Masters and Houston, 1970, p. 335; Victor, 1996, p. 331). Given the

importance of these extra-pharmacological factors, the therapist’s theoretical framework

clearly has a significant influence on his or her practice of psychedelic psychotherapy.

Too often in the past, the underlying therapeutic orientation remained implicit in

discussions about the nature, methods, and effectiveness of psychedelic psychotherapy

(Buckman, 1967, p. 99). With publications like Psychedelic Medicines (Winkelman &

Roberts, 2007), which surveys major theoretical frameworks, this situation seems to be

improving. With many theoretical and methodological questions in need of investigation

(Goldsmith, 2007, p. 109), and with theoretical differences leading to differences in

therapeutic practice (Samuels, 1986, p. 11), we have good reason to be explicit and clear

about the theoretical frameworks underlying psychedelic psychotherapy.

Masters and Houston maintained that by 1970, although most therapists

conducting psycholytic therapy were psychoanalysts, success with psychedelic-assisted

psychotherapy had been reported by hundreds of therapists of various persuasions using a

diverse range of established psychotherapeutic procedures from many countries of the

world (1970, pp. 323-324). In 1967, Blair noted that the different theoretical approaches

represented by conference papers on LSD psychotherapy was astounding (Buckman,

1967, p. 99; see also Ditman & Bailey, 1967, p. 75). In a 1969 review of psychedelic

psychotherapy, Caldwell points out that the tendency of therapists to borrow techniques

from each other and rapidly develop their own approach makes classification of distinct

types of psychedelic psychotherapy difficult (p. 122). In 1996 Bravo and Grob reported

that there was no standard procedure for psychedelic psychotherapy (1996a, p. 337).

Despite the profusion of underlying, and often only implicit, therapeutic

frameworks, and despite the consequent difficulty of classifying approaches to

psychedelic psychotherapy, Caldwell suggested in his 1969 review that some general

trends could be noted (p. 122). Given the lack of standardization and the probable extent

of unofficial psychedelic psychotherapy practiced today, it would still seem difficult if

not impossible to classify what one can imagine is an exuberant profusion of underlying

frameworks. As Caldwell has suggested, however, some general trends can be identified;

and drawing principally from Winkelman and Roberts (2007), I close my literature

25


review with a brief overview of today’s most prominent frameworks for psychedelic

psychotherapy.

1. Psychoanalytic: Psychedelic psychotherapy research between 1950 and the mid

1960s was dominated by a psychoanalytic orientation, and this is most evident in papers

on psycholytic therapy (Abramson, 1967, p. xi; Buckman, 1967, pp. 84-85; Leuner, 1967,

1983). Although some psychoanalytically-oriented practitioners expanded their

framework to include a wider range of orientations when they found the psychoanalytic

framework too limited for the extraordinary variety of experiences and unconscious

content they encountered in many psychedelic sessions (Grof, 1994), the psychoanalytic

framework still holds a significant place in the literature (Merkur, 1998, 2007). However,

it seems to have lost its eminence in the light of more recent approaches, all of which

were developed out of intimate experience with psychedelics. The most prominent of

these are listed below.

2. Grofian: The most authoritative, in-depth, and comprehensive framework for

psychedelic psychotherapy has been constructed by Stanislav Grof and articulated in his

definitive LSD Psychotherapy (1994; see also Tarnas, 1976), which includes a discussion

of the nature, treatment, and transformative potential of psychedelic-induced psychotic

states. In another definitive work, Beyond the Brain: Birth, Death and Transcendence in

Psychotherapy (1985), Grof emphasizes the beneficial potential of the acute psychotic

process (ibid., p. 295). If properly understood and worked through, Grof asserts, the

psychotic process can result in personal and collective transformation (ibid.).

3. Shamanic: Prohibitions on experimental and clinical research with psychedelics

has increased the importance of other kinds of research on their healing potential. An

important form of alternative research has been the cross-cultural study of the use of

psychedelics, sometimes called sacred medicines, by indigenous peoples throughout the

world who have long used psychoactive plants for healing and spiritual purposes (Grob,

2002b, pp. 282, 285; Grof, 1984, p. 17). Such studies of indigenous practices, which are

generically referred to as shamanic, will hopefully contribute to the beneficial use of

psychedelic medicines within contemporary cultures lacking this knowledge and

experience (Dombrowe, 2005; see also Calabrese, 2007; Metzner, 1999, 2002a, 2002b;

Winkelman, 2007a). Indeed, such a synthesis of ancient wisdom and modern science

26


could have far-reaching consequences for the health of our planet, which is currently in

acute crisis (Grof, 1984, pp. 10, 21).

4. Hybrid: The cross-cultural study of indigenous healing with psychedelic

substances has led to new forms of group-based psychedelic psychotherapy that combine

elements of shamanic ritual healing with principles of transpersonal and psychedelic

psychotherapy (Marsden & Lukoff, 2007, p. 287; Metzner, 1998a). Metzner calls such

combined forms of psychedelic psychotherapy “hybrid shamanic psychotherapeutic

rituals” (Metzner, 1999, pp. 40-42; see also Metzner, 1998a). Conducting sessions as

neither shaman nor therapist, the group guide attempts to create conditions that help

“establish a conscious and growth producing link between the participant and the

hallucinogenic experience” (Marsden & Lukoff, 2007, p. 287).

Rationale and Plan for Completing the Literature Review

I intend to complete this literature review by, first, drawing more extensively from

the detailed review of the psychedelic literature in my first comprehensive exam paper on

psychedelics, psychosis, and transformation. I plan to discuss terminology (e.g.,

psychedelics vs. hallucinogens and other terms), to define psychedelics, to summarize the

recent historical and cultural context of psychedelic use (thereby giving context to the

Jungian community’s attitude toward psychedelics), to review new research on

psychedelic psychotherapy, and to discuss in more detail psychosis, the relationship

between psychedelic experience and schizophrenia, the distinction between psychosis and

psychotic states, psychedelics as psychosis-inducing substances, the transformative

potential of psychedelic-induced psychotic states, and reconsideration of the

psychotomimetic model.

Second, I intend to review in more detail primary sources that discuss early

research on psychedelic psychotherapy from the 1950s and early 1960s. This more

extensive and specific review will build a more complete context for the discussion of a

Jungian approach to psychedelic psychotherapy. This review of the early literature will

include several highly relevant papers from a Jungian perspective by Sandison (1954),

Cutner (1959), and Fordham (1963).

27


With the exception of these several rare Jungian papers on psychedelic

psychotherapy, most of the analysis of Jungian psychology vis-à-vis psychedelics will

fall outside the literature review.

And finally, as I implied but did not make explicit in the Scope and Limitations

section above, I intend to very briefly establish the context for the discussion of trauma in

this dissertation by reviewing the general literature on trauma, independent of this

dissertation’s specific discussion of trauma vis-à-vis psychedelic psychotherapy and

Jungian psychology. While it seems important to establish a broad context for the

discussion of trauma, the general literature on trauma is vast, and I will need to be careful

to keep this section of the literature review concise so as not to exceed the limitations of

this dissertation.

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Significance

In the Textbook of Transpersonal Psychiatry and Psychology, Bravo and Grob

close their review of psychedelic psychotherapy by stressing the need for new paradigms

(1996a, p. 340). There are, as I have suggested throughout this proposal, many reasons to

develop a Jungian framework. Others in the field of psychedelic psychotherapy have also

indicated the usefulness of a Jungian framework. House, who recently examined

psychedelic experience in relation to various psychotherapeutic approaches, says that

Jung’s concepts of the collective unconscious and its archetypal symbols “provide a

useful framework for understanding the powerful symbolic imagery commonly

experienced in psychedelic sessions” (2007, p. 185). Masters and Houston, authors of The

Varieties of Psychedelic Experience (1966) and seasoned psychedelic psychotherapists,

view what they call the “Symbolic level” of consciousness in psychedelic experience as

having exceptional therapeutic potential (1970, p. 335). At the Symbolic level, they say,

individuals participate in mythic dramas that represent the essentials of their condition

and that effect deep and sweeping personality changes (ibid.). A Jungian framework

would certainly elucidate this important level of psychedelic experience.

Given the circumstances I have outlined thus far, the relationship of Jung’s

psychology to psychedelic experience and psychedelic psychotherapy seem to be subjects

ripe for scholarly investigation. It is becoming increasingly clear to me that an

investigation of Jung’s approach to the therapeutic process of integrating challenging

unconscious material can yield a unique and valuable framework for understanding the

nature of psychedelic experience, for guiding psychedelic psychotherapy, and for treating

psychedelic-induced psychotic states.

Such an investigation, by enriching the future practice of psychedelic

psychotherapy, could also contribute to the field of transpersonal psychology. I can

imagine, for instance, that a carefully articulated Jungian framework for integrating

psychedelic experiences could become a useful element within Grof’s more

comprehensive framework, just as Grof’s framework could one day find its place in an

even more comprehensive therapeutic system. Bridging Jung’s approach to trauma and

integration with the practice of psychedelic psychotherapy could also contribute to the

29


growing effort to treat post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), within which there is a

growing interest in psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy (Mithoefer, 2007).

This investigation could, in addition, contribute to the field of Jungian

psychology. Psychedelic experiences, like dreams, fantasies, and myths, include

manifestations of the archetypal unconscious (Hill, 2005). In The Archetypes and the

Collective Unconscious, Jung says that he had for years investigated “the products of the

unconscious in the widest sense of the word, namely dreams, fantasies, visions, and

delusions of the insane” (1959, p. 183). It seems therefore that Jungian psychology today

would benefit by widening the scope of unconscious material that it investigates to

include the rich material manifested in psychedelic-induced images, visions, and

delusions.

Beyond the potential contributions to these fields, this inquiry has already proved

to have great personal value. I came to California Institute of Integral Studies in 2002

with the goal of understanding as deeply as possible the life-changing and still haunting

psychedelic-induced psychotic states that I experienced some forty years ago. I have

written numerous papers analyzing my psychedelic experiences from a wide range of

theoretical perspectives,6 and all of them have been personally valuable. I have, however,

acquired especially profound insights into my experience from a Jungian perspective.

Consistent with David Lukoff’s suggestion (1996, pp. 275-276), the process of

articulating the archetypal dimensions of my psychedelic-induced psychotic states in a

paper exploring parallels between those states and myths of death and rebirth from a

Jungian perspective was a profoundly integrative process. That paper, Manifestations of

the Archetypal Unconscious: Parallels in Myth and Personal Experience (Hill, 2003c),

launched my extended inquiry into Jungian psychology that has become more deeply and

joyously significant with each additional Jungian-related paper I have written (Hill,

2007a, 2007b, 2008). I eagerly look forward to extending this inquiry through the kind of

in-depth investigation that a dissertation permits.

6 I have over the last six years studied my own psychedelic-induced psychotic states from the standpoint of Stanislav Grof’s model of the psyche, Ralph Metzner’s theories of psychedelic-induced psychospiritual transformation (including his work with shamanic and hybrid frameworks), dualistic and exultant Christian theologies, Advaita Vedanta, Jung’s theory of the archetypal unconscious, Tarnas’s archetypal astrology, and Hegel’s dialectic.

30


Theoretical Perspective and Methodology

As I have indicated, I plan to interpret psychedelic experience from the theoretical

perspective of Jungian psychology for the purpose of constructing a tentative Jungian

framework for understanding and explaining the nature and significance of psychedelic

experience, for guiding research on psychedelics, and for guiding the practice of

psychedelic psychotherapy and the treatment of psychedelic-induced psychotic states. My

fundamental method of investigation can be characterized therefore as a Jungian

interpretation of psychedelic experience, or a Jungian hermeneutics.

Hermeneutics and Hermeneutical Attitude

When I speak of hermeneutics, I mean a method of interpretation of a text or

anything broadly considered as text. Text understood in a broad sense refers to anything

that carries meaning, including manifestations of psychological states of mind, such as

dreams (Palmer, 1969, p. 43). In my study, the subject of my interpretation will of course

be psychedelic experience, or more specifically psychedelic-induced images, visions, and

psychotic states.

Having already looked at the nature of my own psychedelic-induced psychotic

states of consciousness from a variety of theoretical perspectives,7 I have discovered that

psychedelic experience can be understood quite differently when analyzed from various

theoretical perspectives. Although this sounds patently obvious when stated here, the

actual process of uncovering distinct aspects or properties of the same psychedelic

experiences through the application of different theoretical perspectives has been

revelatory for me. Given the lack of any thorough treatment of the nature of psychedelic

experience from a Jungian perspective, and given the value that I have discovered of

analyzing psychedelic experience from different theoretical perspectives, I have good

reason to think that a Jungian interpretation of psychedelic experience will provide new

and significant insights to others investigating the nature of psychedelic experience.

My ongoing effort to understand the nature of psychedelic experience through the

application of different theoretical perspectives is consistent with the conception of

hermeneutics as an understanding that arises out of an ongoing dialogue or interaction

7 See footnote 5, p. 26.

31


with a text, where again text can be understood broadly to include psychological

experiences. Such an inquiry pursues a kind of truth altogether different than that defined

by such criteria of scientific methodology as experimental verification and replication

(Ferrer, 2002, p. 58). Such an inquiry involves a transformative engagement with one’s

subject of study (ibid.) and a participation in and an openness to the meanings and truths

conveyed in what one is trying to understand (Bernstein, 1983, p. 137).

I do not consider all interpretations as equally valid, however. In The

Hermeneutics of Postmodernity, Madison outlines a set of methodological principles

(e.g., coherence, comprehensiveness, and penetration) that suggests useful criteria for

evaluating the quality of an interpretation (Madison, 1988, pp. 29-35). And in Entering

the Circle: Hermeneutic Investigation in Psychology, Packer and Addison outline another

useful set of guidelines for evaluating an interpretation, some of which are especially

appropriate for my dissertation, including an interpretation’s pragmatic value and

emancipatory potential (1989, pp. 286-287).

For Gadamer, “a consciousness formed by the authentic hermeneutical attitude

will be receptive to origins and entirely foreign features of that which comes to it from

outside its own horizons” (quoted in Bernstein, 1983, pp. 137-138). I find this an

appropriate attitude for interpreting the nature and significance of psychedelic

experience, especially psychedelic-induced psychotic states. This challenge is reflected in

Bernstein’s statement that “the problem . . . is how to understand and do justice to

something that at once strikes us as so strange and alien and yet has sufficient affinity

with us that we can come to understand it” (ibid., p. 141).

Jungian Hermeneutics

Jungian hermeneutics can be characterized broadly, then, as the interpretation of

the nature and significance of psychological experience from a Jungian perspective. Jung

was concerned primarily with understanding and explaining the meaning of

psychological experience rather than its empirical quantification (Clarke, 1992, p. 42).

Despite his frequent proclamations of empiricism, that is, Jung’s whole approach to

psychological life was fundamentally interpretative and explanatory, and thus

hermeneutic. From his early writing on schizophrenia, Jung claimed that careful

interpretation can reveal coherent meaning even in apparently absurd manifestations from

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psychotic patients (1907, par. 35; 1914a, pars. 399-412). In his Two Essays on Analytical

Psychology, Jung explicitly equates what he calls his “synthetic or constructive process

of interpretation” with “the ‘hermeneutic’ method” (Jung, 1966, par. 131).

Jung felt that this hermeneutic method does more justice to “the almost

overpowering profusion of fantastic symbolization” manifested in schizophrenia than

does an analytical-reductive approach (1914a, pars. 389-390). Jung’s hermeneutic

approach seeks not so much to understand how and why the psyche has come to its

current psychotic condition. It assumes rather that the psyche is going through a process

of becoming. “The constructive standpoint asks how, out of this present psyche, a bridge

can be built into its own future. . . . The question is: What is the goal the patient tried to

reach through the creation of his [delusional] system?” (ibid., pars., 399, 408). Jung

encourages us, that is, to look at the individual’s delusions without prejudice and to

appreciate that through them the individual is in fact attempting with all his or her might

to bring something to completion (par. 410). Distinguishing the content of the

individual’s delusions from his or her confusion of that content with reality, Jung

maintains that such delusions are not in themselves pathological. They are subjectively

valid and therefore justifiable within subjective limits (par. 412). The synthetic-

constructive method, Jung says, “must follow the clues laid down by the delusional

system itself” (ibid., par. 421).

Understanding and Explanation

Given the centrality of understanding and explanation in my study, and given my

implicit assumption that these two approaches to knowledge are complementary, I would

like to discuss briefly, first, their historical separation in the philosophy of science into

what Strasser characterizes as “contrasting epistemological attitudes” (1985, p. viii), and

second, Jung’s use of both understanding and explanation.

Traditionally, the term explanation has been reserved for the empirical sciences

and associated with the formation of general laws. As Strasser says, “whenever we can

subsume the individual case under a universal law, we say that we have ‘explained’ it”

(ibid., p. 2). The term understanding, on the other hand, has been set apart traditionally

for the humanities and has been associated with the interpretation of meaning in texts or

other expressions of human life including ideas, emotions, and thoughts (ibid., pp. 4- 6;

33


Clarke, 1992, pp. 42-45). Understanding human beings implies more than observation, as

one would observe particles in physics, say; understanding human beings implies

“grasping the meaning and significance of their words and actions” (ibid., p. 43).

Understanding also implies a concern for particular persons (ibid.). Jung articulates this

explicitly in a passage on knowledge versus understanding:

The statistical method shows the facts in the light of the ideal average but does

not give us a picture of their empirical reality. . . . The distinctive thing about real

facts, however, is their individuality. . . . Hence it is not the universal and the

regular that characterize the individual, but rather the unique. (1958b, p. 17)

Jung of course developed generalizations about psychic structures and processes

based on his association experiments, his psychotherapeutic practice, and his own self-

analysis (Fordham, 1978, p. 3), but these generalizations have not so much the character

of explanatory empirical laws as a provisional attempt to understand the meanings of

manifestations of the human psyche (Clarke, 1992, Chapter 3). Jung adopted both

epistemological attitudes in a way that was complementary rather than contradictory.

This adoption was shaped no doubt by his dual role as scientist and psychotherapist. As

he continues arguing for the importance of the individual in the passage just cited, we can

hear the voice of both the scientist and the psychotherapist speaking.

At the same time man, as member of a species, can and must be described as a

statistical unit; otherwise nothing general can be said about him. . . . This results

in a universally valid anthropology or psychology, as the case may be, with an

abstract picture of man as an average unit from which all individual features have

been removed. But it is precisely these features which are of paramount

importance for understanding man. If I want to understand an individual human

being, I must lay aside all scientific knowledge of the average man. (1958b, p. 18)

The complexity and nuance of Jung’s methodology is consistent with the

contemporary hermeneutic attitude reflected in Strasser’s concept of the “spiral of

understanding,” which rejects an epistemological dichotomy between understanding and

explanation and sees them in a dialectical relationship, wherein understanding interacts

with explanation to refine, enrich, and broaden knowledge. (1985, pp. 31-33).

34


Three Basic Elements of This Investigation

I have said that this study investigates the concepts and principles in Jung’s

psychology that are most relevant to elucidating the fundamental nature of psychedelic

experience. I would now like to clarify the way in which my hermeneutic analysis relates

to this investigation by outlining its three basic elements.

My investigation is based primarily on authoritative statements from relevant

literature about the nature of psychedelic experience. Here are two very abbreviated

examples of the kind of definitions, descriptions, and characterizations I use: In

Psychedelic Drugs Reconsidered, Grinspoon and Bakalar (1997) state that a psychedelic

drug “more or less reliably produces thought, mood, and perceptual changes otherwise

rarely experienced except in dreams, contemplative and religious exaltation, flashes of

vivid involuntary memory, and acute psychoses” (p. 9). And in LSD Psychotherapy, Grof

(1994) characterizes psychedelics as “nonspecific catalysts and amplifiers of the psyche”

(p. 11).

To support and illustrate the authoritative statements, which are inevitably rather

abstract, I use occasional case-study accounts of specific psychedelic experiences by

researchers and therapists working with individuals who have used psychedelic

substances. I also use occasional first-person accounts by individuals who have used

psychedelic substances themselves.

And, finally, I interpret and discuss the authoritative statements and descriptive

accounts in terms of Jung's psychology. This hermeneutic element naturally makes up the

major portion of this investigation.

I do not mean to suggest that these three elements appear in the regular order I

have outlined here, or that all parts of this investigation contain all three elements. I only

want to clarify the underlying structure of this investigation: a Jungian interpretation of

authoritative statements and descriptive accounts regarding psychedelic experience.

35


Chapter Breakdown

Following a tentative outline of my dissertation’s contents, I explain here my

overall plan for treating the nature of psychedelic experience and psychedelic-induced

psychotic states from a Jungian perspective. I end this section with a tentative timeline.

Tentative Outline

Chapter One. Introduction: Jung and Psychedelics

Early Reference to Jung’s Psychology in the Psychedelic Literature

Contemporary References to Jung’s Psychology in the Psychedelic Literature

Jung and Jungians on Psychedelic Experience

The Need for a Jungian Framework

Chapter Two. Literature Review

Psychedelics and Trauma

Psychedelic-Induced Trauma

Psychedelic Therapy as Treatment for Past Trauma

Psychedelics and Psychosis

Psychedelics as Psychosis-Inducing Substances

Psychedelic-Induced Psychotic States and Schizophrenia Compared

The Psychotomimetic Model: Criticized and Reconsidered

Psychedelics, Psychosis, and Trauma: The Transformative Potential

The Transformative Potential of Psychedelic Experience in General

The Transformative Potential of Psychedelic-Induced Psychotic States

Views of Grof, Perry, Lukoff, Metzner, and Others

Psychedelic Psychotherapy

The Psycholytic and Psychedelic Models

Therapeutic Frameworks

Chapter Three. Fundamental Jungian Concepts Relevant to Explaining the Nature and Significance of Psychedelic Experience

Consciousness and the Collective, or Archetypal, Unconscious

Archetypes and Their Manifestation

Archetype of the Self

The Numinosum

36


Psychological Rebirth

Transformation and Individuation

The Interpretation of Dreams and Other Products of the Unconscious

Chapter Four. Jung’s General Explanation of the Nature of Psychedelic Experience

Lowering of the Threshold of Consciousness

Enriched Apperception and the Limits of Integration

Psychedelic Experience and Schizophrenia Compared

The Phenomenology of the Complex

Chapter Five. The Nature of Psychedelic-Induced Psychotic States

Trauma in Jung’s Psychology

Kalsched’s Theory of Trauma and the Self’s Archetypal Defenses

Trauma and Dissociation in Jung’s Psychology

Trauma and Jung’s Complex Theory

The Affective Foundation of Jung’s Psychology

Jung’s Notion of Possession by Complexes

The Shadow in Jung’s Psychology

Jung’s Concept of the Shadow

Personal and Archetypal Levels of the Shadow

The Overwhelmingly Numinous Nature of the Archetypes

Resistance to and Projection of the Shadow

The Self’s Defense Against Overwhelming Affect

Psychosis in Jung’s Psychology

Jung’s Focus on Schizophrenic Forms of Psychosis

Commonalities Between Schizophrenia and Other Conditions

Neurosis, Latent Psychosis, and Manifest Psychosis

Abaissement du Niveau Mental and Psychedelic-Induced Psychosis

The Nature of Adverse Psychological Reactions to Psychedelics

Psychedelic-Induced Psychotic States

Chapter Six. Trauma, Shadow, and Psychosis: The Transformative Potential

The Healing Potential of Psychotic Experiences

The Painful Passage Through the Shadow Towards Wholeness

37


Treating Trauma: Integration versus Abreaction

Trauma and Abreaction Defined by Jung

Jung on the Therapeutic Value of Abreaction

Jung’s and Grof’s Views Compared

Drawing From Both Grof and Jung

Chapter Seven. Jung’s Approach to the Therapeutic Process of Integration

The Transcendent Function

Active Imagination and Other Techniques

Chapter Eight. Jungian Psychotherapy and Psychedelic Psychotherapy

The Relationship Between Analyst and Analysand

The Goal of Individuation

Chapter Nine. Treatment Implications: A Jungian Approach to Psychedelic-Induced Psychotic States and Psychedelic Psychotherapy

Discussion

After introducing the current relationship of Jung and Jungian psychology to

psychedelics, my literature review will lay a foundation for my Jungian treatment of

psychedelic experience by giving an overview of fundamental concepts and issues in the

field of psychedelic studies. I intend to focus almost exclusively on the psychedelic

literature in the literature review, leaving my Jungian interpretation of psychedelic

experience to the remaining parts of my dissertation.

I will start my Jungian interpretation by introducing central Jungian concepts and

principles that are fundamental to understanding the nature and significance of

psychedelic experience from a Jungian perspective. Then, after investigating Jung’s

conception of psychedelic experience in general, I will conduct an in-depth investigation

of Jungian concepts and principles related to trauma, shadow, and psychosis that

elucidate the nature of psychedelic-induced psychotic states. The following part on the

transformative potential of trauma, shadow, and psychosis, including an in-depth

treatment of integration and the transcendent function, will lead to the final two parts of

my dissertation, both of which will discuss the implications of a Jungian approach to

psychotherapy for the treatment of psychedelic-induced psychotic states and for

psychedelic psychotherapy (Chapter Eight, generally, and Chapter Nine, specifically).

38


Tentative Timeline

Although this timeline is possible given the research and writing I have already

completed, it assumes rather ideal conditions and may therefore need to be modified.

September 15, 2008 – Proposal read by committee chair.

September 20, 2008 – Proposal circulated to other committee members.

November 1, 2008 – Student receives committee approval for proposal.

November 15, 2008 – First three chapters circulated to committee.

December 1, 2008 – Second three chapters circulated to committee.

January 1, 2009 – Last three chapters circulated to committee.

February 20, 2009 – Oral defense.

March 20, 2009 – Student receives approval from chair.

Spring 2009 – Student graduates.

Considering the real possibility that I am not able to meet these rather ideal

deadlines, I will adopt this more realistic timeline, which essentially means that I will be

graduating in the summer instead of the spring of 2009.

November 15, 2008 – First two chapters circulated to committee.

December 1, 2008 – Third and forth chapters circulated to committee.

January 1, 2009 – Fifth thru seventh chapters circulated to committee.

February 1, 2009 _ Eighth and ninths chapters circulated to committee.

March 15, 2009 _ Final draft circulated to committee.

May 1, 2009 – Oral defense.

June 30, 2009 – Student receives approval from chair.

Summer 2009 – Student graduates.

39


Research Bibliography

In addition to sources listed in References, below (p. 37), and the sources I used in

my comprehensive exam on psychedelics, psychosis, and transformation (Hill, 2006),8 I

will focus my investigation into Jungian psychology on the following:

Primary Sources

Although I will surely find useful material throughout Jung’s publications, I

anticipate focusing my investigation into Jung’s psychology on the following sources.

From Jung’s Collected Works, Bollingen Series XX

Vol. 3, The Psychogenesis of Mental Disease

Vol. 4, Psychological Types (especially, chapters 2, 5, 6, 10, and 11)

Vol. 7, Two Essays on Analytical Psychology

Vol. 8, The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche

Vol. 9, Part I, The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious

Vol. 16, The Practice of Psychotherapy

Other Primary Sources

Jung, C. (1963). Memories, Dreams, Reflections. New York: Vintage Books.

Jung, C. & von Franz, M.-L. (Eds.). (1964). Man and His Symbols. Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Co.

Secondary Jungian Sources

Samuels suggests that Jung needs the Jungians that followed him as much as they

need him because sometimes they reach compatible conclusions in a more coherent or

better documented way (1986, p. 1). Although I will draw chiefly from Jung’s primary

sources, I will also use a variety of secondary Jungian sources, including the following.

Campbell, J. (Ed.). (1971). The Portable Jung. New York: Penguin.

Chodorow, J. (Ed.). (1997). Jung on Active Imagination. Princeton: Princeton University.

Clarke, J. (1992). In Search of Jung: Historical and Philosophical Enquiries. New York: Routledge.

8 My five-page reference list for this paper is available for examination upon request.

40


Corbett, L. (1996). The Religious Function of the Psyche. New York: Brunner-Routledge.

Edinger, E. (1987). The Christian Archetype: A Jungian Commentary on the Life of Christ. Toronto, Canada: Inner City Books.

Edinger, E. (1992). Ego and Archetype: Individuation and the Religious Function of the Psyche. Boston: Shambhala Publications.

Edinger, E. (1999). Archetype of the Apocalypse: A Jungian Study of the Book of Revelation. Chicago: Open Court.

Henderson, J. (1990). Shadow and Self: Selected Papers in Analytical Psychology. Wilmette, IL: Chiron Publications.

Kalsched, D. (1996). The Inner World of Trauma: Archetypal Defenses of the Personal Spirit. New York: Routledge.

Kelly, S. (1996). Individuation and the Absolute: Hegel, Jung, and the Path Toward Wholeness. New York: Paulist Press.

Mattoon, M.A. (Ed.). (1993). The Transcendent Function: Individual and Collective Aspects (Proceedings of the Twelfth International Congress for Analytical Psychology, August 23-28, 1992). Einsiedeln, Switzerland: Daiomon Verlag.

Miller, J. (2004). The Transcendent Function: Jung’s Model of Psychological Growth through Dialogue with the Unconscious. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.

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