What is Schizophrenia?
A good question, with no simple, short, or straightforward answer, since each sufferer is unique and schizophrenia is a complex phenomenon. In general, schizophrenia is an extremely introverted, psychospiritual mode of perception, or way of relating to the world; or state of consciousness involving (what I have called) 'extreme empathy'. This simultaneous blessing and curse is due to a fragile, fragmented, dead, or lost ego, or conscious personality structure. The normal, ego-enforced boundaries between the self and the world have broken down, such that schizophrenia sufferers - for better and worse - find themselves identifying with everything within their scope of perception. It is because of this ego loss, or 'dis-integration' that psychosis, shamanic initiation and mystical experience are so inextricably bound.
The schizophrenic person may appear to family, friends and doctors to be lacking in emotion, but in reality is in a state of intense empathy, such that extreme sensations of joy and fear are usual. Because of their fragile personal boundaries, schizophrenic folk typically see, hear, sense, perceive and understand things that others are unaware of. Secret, or symbolic meanings are seen and heard in everything, and the schizophrenia sufferer typically feels responsible for the fate of the world.
Is Schizophrenia 'Split Personality'?
Yes . . . and No! Imagine, if you will, that a 3-levelled house represents the structure of the psyche. The top floor, consisting of various linked rooms, represents consciousness, in all its bustling, interacting complexity. Immediately below is the cellar, which represents the personal unconscious, or dark 'shadow' side of the personality. The lowest level, the basement, is the oldest part of the house and contains dim, godlike and archaic figures, personifications of what Jung called 'archetypes', universally occurring, powerful energies and forms of behaviour and thought, which make up what Jung called the 'collective unconscious', and which often take on mythological, religious, semi-human, divine, animal or natural forms. What we call 'split personality' involves the conscious personality forming split off, distinctly separate personalities, so it's as if the upper floor rooms become completely isolated from each other, their doors all locked.
With a schizophrenic split, or fragmentation, however, it's as if the house's floorboards (foundations of the conscious personality) are split, or shattered as invading archetypal figures from the basement rush up to inhabit, or displace the upstairs (conscious) inhabitants. As Jung notes, whereas the healthy person's ego (conscious self) is the subject of his/her experiences, the schizophrenic person's ego is (therefore) only one of several subjects. The nature of the schizophrenic 'split' (which I've called 'split subjectivity') in other words, arises from the splitting of the archetypes of the collective unconscious into a multitude of figures that invade, or usurp the weaker and far more fragile conscious personality. It's a bit like a swimming pool trying to contain the ocean! ...
It is vital for the sufferer's dignity and well-being that his/her whole range of needs - physical, emotional and spiritual - be respected and addressed. The great soul-centred psychiatrist Jung cured his schizophrenic patients with psychotherapy alone, since only in this personal and painstaking way could he unearth the personal story, in which was embedded the trauma, or crisis which had originally triggered the schizophrenic disintegration.
Jungian psychotherapy involves a non-authoritarian, one-to-one personal dialogue which involves drawing on the healing potential within the individual's unconscious, as it expresses itself in schizophrenic dreams, visions, artwork, voices, and other inward experiences. Since schizophrenia taps into the collective unconscious and its powerful and sometimes disturbing archetypal energies, effective psychotherapy usually involves working with mythological, archetypal and religious themes, experiences and imagery, usually with a view to reintegrating the wandered, or dissociated fragments of the personality. What Jung called 'active imagination', a form of guided visualization, can also help 'rewire' the mind and regain a sense of focus and personal identity.
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