UC Santa Barbara

Clinicians and psychologists of religion have long discussed how to distinguish normal from pathological symptoms in relation to spiritual experiences, including those occurring within the context of meditation, under the heading of ‘differential diagnosis. One of the primary criteria for psychopathology more broadly, and one of the criteria by which spiritual experiences have been distinguished from pathological ones, has been whether the experience is distressing and causes impairment of functioning. However, recently a group of researchers (including this author) have begun to document distressing and impairing meditation-related experiences and how some are appraised as normative within contemporary meditative traditions. In light of this, how can clinicians striving to be culturally sensitive make sense of meditation-related difficulties without doing harm? What kind of etic frameworks can explain how sometimes things get worse before they get better, whereas other times things get worse before deteriorating even more? And how might we begin to understand some of the causal factors that distinguish one trajectory over the other? If we follow practitioners and teachers in viewing the Abrahamic contemplative paths as nonlinear, then etic frameworks for meditation-related difficulties will need to explain both normative and non-normative experiences, as well as help distinguish them from each other. In this dissertation I argue that distressing meditation-related experiences in Abrahamic traditions can be understood in a culturally sensitive manner in terms of complex systems approaches to cognitive and clinical science which acknowledge the pivotal nature of contemplative states of absorption and their involvement in nonlinear change processes that culminate in changes to trait senses of self. Doing so will help clinicians provide better culturally sensitive care and, at the same time, help them to distinguish distressing experiences that will ultimately be beneficial from those that will not be. In chapter one we will examine data from interviews with practitioners and teachers from Jewish, Christian, and Islamicate contemplative traditions where subjects did not identify all distressing experiences as pathological but interpreted some as actually indicative of spiritual progress. In the interpretation of both kinds of challenging experiences, practitioners and teachers used particular mystical texts and ideas to discuss what was normative or not in their tradition, while, at the same time, often drawing from sources such as Jungian psychoanalysis or somatic therapy to translate and engage with the medieval purification frameworks that are embedded within traditional conceptions of nonlinear paths. In chapter two, I argue that states of absorption cultivated in these traditions can be understood from a complex-systems perspective as pivotal mental states. While the trait has been studied for decades, states of absorption have been under-theorized. To better understand states of absorption, I draw on work investigating dissociation and perceptual decoupling to propose that the states of absorption cultivated in Abrahamic contemplative traditions are states of intentional decoupling. I further argue that they can also be understood as “pivotal mental states” in that they are states of heightened plasticity that can instantiate long term changes that are either adaptive or maladaptive. The next stage in the construction of an etic framework, undertaken in chapter three, is to explore how states of absorption lead to oscillations, which in turn lead to new base-line senses of self. While the research on pivotal states may help explain how states of absorption can lead to either beneficial or harmful long-term outcomes, it doesn’t explain the nonlinear change processes that define nonlinear paths. In this chapter I argue that recent work incorporating complex systems frameworks into psychotherapy research and cognitive science provides critical insights to understand how the oscillatory trajectories reported in Abrahamic contemplative traditions can lead to goals of transformed senses of self. In chapter four, the final stage in constructing an etic framework that can be of practical utility will be presented and tested by examining case studies of contemporary Abrahamic contemplative practitioners. This chapter will examine systems approaches to psychiatry and will highlight a recent one—the cultural ecosocial systems approach—that I argue is particularly useful in case formulation and intervention planning for meditation-related difficulties in a culturally sensitive manner. Finally, I will emphasize two features of the cultural ecosocial approach that I believe are particularly useful for differentiating between distressing meditation-related difficulties that are likely to lead to adaptive growth from those which will lead to maladaptive decline and an exacerbation of distress.