May I suggest that you run, not walk, to Sheila Joshi’s Neuroscience and Psi blog, where her latest post is “Distressing psi is really misinterpreted insight, vitality, and developmental thrust.”
“I was very struck by how there are a handful of outpatient clinics in Europe and Argentina where people having distressing psychic or spiritual experiences can get help from professionals who are trained in both clinical psychology and parapsychology.
“In fact, I would go further and say that the data presented led me to think that the spontaneous psi experiences were distressing because they were being somewhat misinterpreted by the experiencers, and because they contained a developmental thrust that was very much wanted but which was also taboo. To me, these spontaneous experiences really seemed like shoves from the Tao / infinite self / personal unconscious / spirit guides – or some combination of them all!”
An immediate question is, why has this information been so quiet–or so missing entirely–in North America?
The post also notes,
“The idea that distressing psychic / spiritual experiences might be driven by some kind of need to take the next step in one’s development parallels the strand in the history of psychology / psychiatry that has seen psychosis in a similar light. John Weir Perry at the Diabasis center, R.D. Laing, C.G. Jung, Kazimierz Dąbrowski, the Anti-psychiatry movement in the 1960s, the Spiritual Emergency Network in the 1980s, etc. have avowed that psychosis is a crisis accompanied by much distortion, yes, but it is also an opportunity for radical healing if it is also interpreted as a source of truth and vitality.
“Why do these developmental thrusts appear in such negative guise, for example, as distressing psi or as psychosis? One important reason…is that they involve change in self boundaries or ego … And, unfortunately, we tend to fear this and fight it tooth and nail, even if it’s for our eventual greater happiness.”
Read the entire post here:
http://neuroscienceandpsi.blogspot.com/2012/03/distressing-psi-is-really.html