Discussion of “Expansion and Regression in Oceanic Experience”

Abstract

ABSTRACT In Expansion and Regression in Oceanic Experience, Peoples and Rundel examine “what happens from a psychoanalytic perspective when a patient engages in psychedelic-assisted therapy.” In an elegant paper that has both a clinical and theoretical focus, they discuss what Romain Rolland described metaphorically as the “oceanic feeling.” They believe such feelings can have transformative value, in contrast with what they see as a prevailing tendency among psychoanalysts, including me, to view such experiences as indications of pathological fusion and unhealthy regression. Here, I clarify my own relational perspective on unitive feelings and apply this to the case vignette offered in Peoples and Rundel’s paper. I highlight convergences and contrasts between this relational perspective and the far-reaching model of levels of consciousness proposed by Peoples and Rundel.