The purposes of this paper are twofold: first, I wish to correct a systematic bias in Husserlian transcendental phenomenology. This bias is in favor of intuition of essences of meaning and against the intuition of essences of sensation. This bias is explained as a product of Husserl's mind‐body dualism. Second, I suggest the possibility of a neurophenomenology from a biogenetic structural point...
3,4-Methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA) has been at the center of a debate over its potential benefits as an adjunct to psychotherapy versus its capability for neurotoxic effects and is currently classified as a Schedule 1 drug by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). However, as yet, there is very little methodological data on the subjective experience of the MDMA-induced state or its...
In recent years a conjunction of factors have brought questions surrounding the phenomenology and pharmacology of altered states of consciousness back onto the scientific agenda. These factors primarily involve the re-classification of psychiatric disorders that took place in 1980 with the publication of DSM III, which contained a number of syndromes that could be characterized in terms of...
The tension between two fundamentally different approaches to characterizing and treating psychopathology has increased during the last year. These are the traditional diagnostic-category approach and the symptom dimensional approach. Progress made in the symptom-dimensional approach has reached the point where it may now challenge the diagnostic-category approach. This challenge has been...
In this article parallels are drawn between sleep and anaesthesia. Both can be described as 'behavioural states' in which stimulation and inhibition of certain neuronal groups will give rise to specific psychological states. The neuronal mechanisms leading to these states are reviewed and compared. Sensory information flow through the thalamus is reduced in sleep and anaesthesia, the thalamic...
In the process of Christian verbal prayer there are two basic categories: petitionary prayer and prayer of relationship. In contrast to the stereotype of most prayer as petitionary, in this study of 345 subjects, members of a non-denominational program called A Search For God, prayer of relationship made up a substantial part of the typical prayers of both those who identified themselves as...
Spirituality has been recognized as pivotal in health education and health promotion. Although spirituality is often discussed as a dimension of health, there is little evidence of integrating it into educational settings and health promotion programs. The difficulty in addressing the concept of spirituality is related to both its association with denominational religion and our cultural...
Merleau-Ponty never wrote a phenomenology of sympathy.But his use of sympathy in accounting for human relationships parallels in intent and manner his treatment of perception in the Phenomenology.}In addressing the paradox of alterity, he draws an analogy between perception and sympathy: just as perceptual consciousness founds intersubjective thematic experience, in the same way pre-personal...
The psychopathology of acute organic psychosis was investigated by interviewing 74 patients using the Present State Examination (PSE). Their delusions, perceptual disturbance, thought disorder, and emotional disorder were categorised and then compared with those seen in 74 acute schizophrenics. In acute organic psychosis there was a particular pattern to the delusions, perceptual disturbance,...
In Part I of this thesis, mystical experience is defined in terms of some of the classical philosophical and psychological issues which surround it. It is also connected to the general class of the praeternatural which is defined operationally as those visionary and remote perception experiences which have a quality of supernaturalness as defined by Hultkrantz. The psycho-phenomenology of...