Yoga and psychosis

Abstract

The methodology undertaken in this thesis is a comparative study in psychological terms of the dynamics of psychosis and yogic development, aims and goals. This is mainly in terms of making conscious the unconscious and realizing man's inner potential. However, the specifically religious dimension is not lost sight of, and the meaning of this development in terms of individuation and integration is noted. Throughout, it is assumed that the growing knowledge of personal mechanisms, structure and dynamics, is not an end in itself, but a preparation for the realization of an integral symbiosis between self and world. The preparatory "inner" work is reflected in a growing ability and desire to encounter the manifold, physical or social, that confronts one. The road to this integrity is viewed as a life process, and whether the exploration is purposeful, as in yoga, or the result of psychotic eruption, the dynamics of either path are shown to be similar with similar opportunity. Once again the terms used to illustrate this are psychological, using a psycho-analytic theory of psychosis to explain. To compare psychosis and yoga may appear unusual, yet as one will see in the body of the text, the exploration of the psyche follows similar dynamics, whether we talk in terms of psychotic regression or ego death. The dynamics of these processes is that described in what follows, within a philosophy that accords equal experiential reality to self and world. The process of life is an adventure that does not readily succumb to a metaphysical explanation and must be experienced and lived, even in extremes. It is this espousal of life that is judged to be the culmination of yoga and the opportunity for the psychotic.