the beginning of the “disease” and the intensity of the symptoms is used as the measure of the seriousness of the pathological process. Alleviation of the symptoms is considered “clinical improvement” and their intensification is seen as “worsening of the clinical condition”. The observations from the study of holotropic states suggest that thinking in terms of disease, diagnosis, and allopathic therapy is not appropriate for most psychiatric problems that are not clearly organic in nature, including some of the conditions currently labeled as psychoses. We have all experienced the vicissitudes and challenges of embryological development, birth, infancy and childhood. This has left traumatic imprints in the unconscious of all of us, although we certainly differ as to their intensity, extensity, and also availability of these memories for conscious experience. Every person also carries a variety of more or less latent emotional and bioenergetic blockages, which interfere with full physiological and psychological functioning. The manifestation of emotional and psychosomatic symptoms is the beginning of a healing process through which the organism is trying to free itself from these traumatic imprints and simplify its functioning. The only way this can happen is by emergence of the traumatic material into consciousness and its full experience and emotional and motor expression. If the trauma that is being processed is of major proportions, such as a difficult birth that lasted many hours and seriously threatened biological survival, the emotions and behavioral expressions can be extremely dramatic. Under these circumstances, it might seem more plausible to conclude that these manifestations are the result of some exotic yet unknown pathology rather than realize that they represent a potentially beneficial process. However, properly understood and supported, even such extreme symptoms can be conducive to healing, spiritual opening, personality transformation, and consciousness evolution. The emergence of symptoms thus represents not only a problem, but also a therapeutic opportunity; this insight is the basis of most experiential psychotherapies. Symptoms manifest in the area where the defense system is at its weakest, making it possible for the healing process to begin. According to my experience, this is true not only for neuroses and psychosomatic disorders, but also for many conditions traditionally labeled functional psychoses. It is interesting to mention in this context that the Chinese pictogram for “crisis” is composed of two simpler ones, one meaning “danger” and the other “opportunity”. The idea that the symptoms are not manifestations of disease, but are expressions of a healing process and should be supported is the basic tenet of a therapeutic system called homeopathy (Vithoulkas 1990). In traditional psychotherapy, emotional and psychosomatic symptoms that are not of organic, but psychogenic origin, are seen as resulting from postnatal biographical traumas, especially those that occurred in infancy and childhood. Therapeutic work using holotropic states reveals that they have additional deeper roots on the perinatal and transpersonal levels. Thus, for example, somebody suffering from psychogenic asthma can discover that the biographical material underlying this disorder consists of memories of suffocation during Spirituality Studies 2 (1) Spring 2016 29
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