A narrative pattern analysis of primary process language and body boundary imagery in discourse of religious-mystical and psychotic altered states of consciousness

Edinburgh Research Explorer A narrative pattern analysis of primary process language and body boundary imagery in discourse of religious-mystical and psychotic altered states of consciousness Citation for published version: Cariola, LA 2012, 'A narrative pattern analysis of primary process language and body boundary imagery in discourse of religious-mystical and psychotic altered states of consciousness', The 16th Annual Meeting of the Association for the Scientific Study of Consciousness, Brighton, United Kingdom, 2/07/12 - 6/07/12. Link: Link to publication record in Edinburgh Research Explorer Document Version: Publisher's PDF, also known as Version of record General rights Copyright for the publications made accessible via the Edinburgh Research Explorer is retained by the author(s) and / or other copyright owners and it is a condition of accessing these publications that users recognise and abide by the legal requirements associated with these rights. Take down policy The University of Edinburgh has made every reasonable effort to ensure that Edinburgh Research Explorer content complies with UK legislation. If you believe that the public display of this file breaches copyright please contact openaccess@ed.ac.uk providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim. Download date: 13. Dec. 2021 Assessing the narrative patterns of body boundary imagery and regressive imagery in discourses of religious-mystical and psychotic experiences - A case study Laura A. Cariola Department of Linguistics and English Language Lancaster University Results continued Primordial cognition and changes in body boundary awareness have been identified as shared phenomenological features in both mystical and psychotic altered states of consciousness (ASC) (e.g., Prince & Savage, 1966). Computer-assisted content analysis has identified that the narrative pattern of linguistic variables associated to regressive states (i.e., primordial thought language and penetration imagery) follow a fifth polynomial degree curve in religious texts (West, 1991; Wilson, 2009). Thus, this study investigated the narrative pattern of body boundary and primordial imagery in the discourses of mystical and psychotic experiences to explore the notion of adaptive and maladaptive regression (Balint, 1968), and the dynamical function and interaction of primordial language, body boundary imagery, and emotion language in ASC. The mystical discourse here is Saint Teresa of Avila’s (1567) "The Way of Perfection”, and the psychotic discourse is Daniel Paul Schreber’s (1903) autobiographical writing “Memoirs of My Nervous Illness”. It was hypothesized that primordial thought language and penetration imagery will follow a fifth polynomial degree curve in the religious-mystical and psychotic text. Psychotic text 10 9 8 7 5 10 15 20 25 30 Segment Figure 3 - Inverted cubic trend of primordial thought language in the psychotic text 5 3.0 2.0 6 3.5 2.5 High barrier imagery and glory lexis might function as a narcissistic defence to exclude trauma experiences from conscious awareness to protect the ego from threatening annihilating insights. In such a dynamic, high barrier imagery represents a competing driving force that inhibits the blurring of body boundaries and the ability to confront unconscious conflicts in the regressive state, and thus leading to the continuous disintegration/splitting of existing meaning structures. 0 4 1.5 1.0 2 1.0 1.5 3 2.0 Body Type Dictionary (BTD) (Wilson, 2006) measures barrier imagery and penetration imagery based on Fisher & Cleveland’s (1958) scoring system of high and low body boundary personality. Regressive Imagery Dictionary (RID) (Martindale, 1990) measures primordial and conceptual thought language, and emotion language. Primordial thought language followed an inverted cubic trend (BIC= 104.74, R2ML = 0.35, LR(7,10) = 13.20 p < .01) (see Figure 3), showing a dysfunctional self-reparative function within regressive states of psychotic disorders and an inability to gain whole-object representation (Klein, 1946). Barrier imagery (BIC= 89.81, R2ML = 0.03, LR(7,10) = 7.66, p < . 05) and glory lexis (BIC = 52.77, R2ML = 0.65, LR(7,10) = 32.28 p < . 001) showed an inverted cubic trend (see Figure 4-5). Penetration imagery (BIC= 109.69, R2ML = 0.14, LR(7,8) = 4.85, p < . 05) indicated a positive linear curve (see Figure 6-7). 2.5 Objective measures 11 Introduction 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 Segment Figure 4 - Inverted cubic trend of barrier imagery in the psychotic text 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 Segment Figure 5 - Inverted cubic trend of glory lexis in the psychotic text 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 Segment Figure 6 - Linear trend of penetration lexis in the psychotic text Conclusion The function of body boundary and primordial regression differed between religious-mystical and psychotic experiences. In the religious-mystical text, the blurring of body boundaries corresponded with the driving force to confront and resolve unconscious conflicts, indicating an adaptive primordial regression. In the psychotic text, however, barrier imagery maintained the narcissistic equilibrium that excludes unconscious conflicts from conscious awareness, such as trauma experiences, and therefore restrains and overrides the driving force to gain new insights and to change dysfunctional meaning structures, representing a maladaptive primordial regression. References 0.0 5 0.5 1.0 6 1.5 7 2.0 2.5 8 3.0 Primordial thought language (BIC = 131.44, R2ML = 0.20, LR(7,9) = 9.55, p < .01) followed a quadratic trend in form of a prolonged inverted bell curve, and penetration imagery was modelled with a quadric polynomial fit (BIC = 97.58, R2ML = 0.22, LR(7,11) = 10.75, p < .05) with a homogenous fall-rise-fall-rise pattern. Both curves coincided in the driving force of their rise-fall pattern (approx. chapter 10-40) (see Figure 1-2), and thus indicating an adaptive regression in the mystical fusion experience that might reflect the integrative state of purgation in which the mystic is assumed to confront and clarify aspects of the false self and unconscious conflicts. The new insight results in a whole-object and self-representation (Klein, 1935, 1946). The adjustment of existing meaning structures that might lead to adaptive behavioural changes and enhancement of the true self. 0 Religious-mystical text 0.0 0.0 1 0.5 0.5 Results 0 10 20 30 40 Segment Figure 1 – Quadratic polynomial trend of primary process language in the religious-mystical text. 0 10 20 30 40 Segment Figure 2 – Quadratic polynomial trend of penetration imagery in the religious-mystical text. St. Teresa of Avilia (1567). The Way of Perfection. (E. A. Peers Trans.) Retrieved from http://www.ccel.org/ccel/teresa/way/html Balint, M. (1968). The Basic Fault. Evanston, Il: Northwestern University Press. Schreber, D. P. (1955). Memoirs of My Nervous Illness. (I. Macalpine & R. A. Hunter Trans.). London: Dawson. (Original work published 1903) Fisher, S., & Cleveland, S. (1958). Body Image and Personality. New York, NY: Dover Publications. Klein, M. (1997). Notes on Some Schizoid Mechanism. In Envy and Gratitude and Other Works 1946-1963 (pp. 1-24). London, UK: Random House Press. (Original work published 1946) Klein, M. (1998). A Contribution to the Psychogenesis of Manic-Depressive States. In Love, Guilt, and Reparation and Other Works 1924-1945 (pp.262-289). London, UK: Random House Press. (Original work published 1935) Martindale, C. (1990). The Clockwork Muse: The Predictability of Artistic Change. New York, NY: Basic Books. Prince, R. & Savage, C. (1966). Mystical states and the concept of regression. Consciousness and Cognition, 15, 500-539. West, A. (1991). Primary process content in the King James Bible: the five stages of Christian mysticism. Computers and the Humanities, 25, 227 238. Wilson, A. (2006). The development and application of a content analysis dictionary for body boundary research. Literary and Linguistic Computing, 21, 105-110. Wilson, A. (2009). Barrier and penetration imagery in altered states of consciousness discourse: replicating the five-stage model of Christian mysticism in the Bible. In W. Oleksy and P. Stalmaszczyk (Eds.), Cognitive Approaches to Language and Linguistic Data: Studies in Honor of Barbara Lewandowska-Tomaszczyk, Polish Studies in English Language and Literature (pp.357-372), vol. 27. Frankfurt am Main, Germany: Peter Lang. Acknowledgments I would like to thank my supervisor Dr. Andrew Wilson for his support.