Re: MAPS: Prescription: Euphoria

[Fenwizard@xxxxxxx]

Thank you, Dan, for your thoughtful and insightful posting. I would like to
comment and add my own slant to this as a practicing psychotherapist
(although not a psychoanalytic one) who is also practiced somewhat at
Buddhist meditation.  (I was also raised Methodist, but that is neither here
nor there, since, as noted, most Methodists no longer  practice Wesley's
original "methods.")

In my understanding and experience, the "samadhi" that is developed prior to
engaging in insight (vipassana) is not so much about "euphoria" as it is
about a kind of concentrated neutral consciousness.  This experience may at
times be "euphoric" although it's not necessarily so and this isn't its key
feature.  It is more like being able to develop a powerful inner spotlight
that can shine on the flow of cognition and experience.  This spotlight is
like clear light rather than colored light - so that it doesn't color the
flow of experience with criticism and judgments.  It is sometimes called "the
Fair Witness."  With this neutral, non-self-critical consciousness one is
able to observe in an empathic, compassionate way, all thoughts and
experiences which arise from moment to moment.  This leads, not so much to
intellectual analysis but to insight into the nature of the mind and self.
It observes just what arises from moment to moment without either pushing
anything away nor clinging to it.  The final goal of "enlightenment" (if
there is a final goal) is to see that there is no solid ego or "self," just
an ever-changing river of experience which arises in relation to all other
beings, indeed, that one's being is ultimately the web of all being, an
inter-being, and out of this a compassion for oneself and all others arises.
In good therapy, the therapist models an attitude which is much like this
"fair witness."  This provides an empathic container, in which the client can
begin to accept the full range of their own thoughts and experiences in a
compassionate, non-judgemental way.  In the transference, the client begins
to integrate the open, empathic and nonjudgmental qualities of the therapist
which leads to openness to one's inner experience and less need to repress,
etc. Out of this, one may decide to change something about oneself or one's
life, but out of self-love and acceptance, not out of self-flagellation.  So
many folks, it seems, suffer much from an overly harsh and judgmental part of
themselves (labeled variously as the superego, a negative parental complex,
the inner critic or judge, etc.).  There seems to be a plague of self-hatred,
especially in the West, and I think most of us suffer from it to some extent.


I have often thought that this is the key to the therapeutic value of MDMA.
When under its healing influence, it is almost impossible to be overly
self-critical and negative to oneself. You are able to see everything without
blame or harsh judgment.   You can label this "euphoria" and this is indeed
one of its qualities, however, I think that this euphoria is secondary to the
empathy and compassion that one feels for oneself and others (this is often
experienced physically as a "heart opening").  Our culture is hungry for
this, hence its current popularity at raves, etc.  Other drugs also create a
euphoria - alcohol for instance - but they do so by turning down the dimmer
switch on the light of consciousness so that you temporarily forget about
your usual self-criticism. It is more like a kind of anesthesia.   MDMA
somehow seems to dissolve the critic without dimming the light of
consciousness.  The trick is to remember what this experience is like and to
integrate it once the effect of the drug has worn off, otherwise it can just
be used addictively to get this experience without any integration of it.

I think that the more classic psychedelics, like LSD and psylocybin for
instance, are a bit different in that everything in the mind is greatly
amplified; including any self--negativity.  This is indeed, a common type of
"bad trip": getting caught in a self-critical mind loop that one is unable to
shake. (I think that even the common experience of anxiety and "paranoia"
that many people have with cannabis is this type of experience.)  However,
this can get amplified (hopefully) to the point where you begin to see it for
what it is and it begins to dissolve.  As the experience amplifies further,
especially at the higher doses, the ego temporarily dissolves (including its
self-critical constructions) and one can view the full range of inner
experience in a compassionate way.  At times, one can even catch a glimpse of
the "nirvanic" state in which the boundary between self and other dissolves
and one is simply a unitive flow of nondual consciousness.  This is indeed
euphoric, but bliss is a byproduct of this level of consciousness.  From this
compassionate state, one can have compassion, empathy and insight into one's
everyday "ego self" with all of its so-called problems, as well as developing
more compassion and understanding of other beings.  So yes, by experiencing
empathy/compassion/bliss (what I think you call "euphoria") one is able to
arrive at insight.  And again, the experience is only useful insofar that it
can be integrated into one's ordinary life, once the drug has worn off.  In
Buddhist terminology, it grants you a "view" of a greater, nondual
compassionate consciousness.  Then the work is to "stabilize" this view, this
type of awareness, so that you have access to it on a more ongoing basis.
Spiritual experiences are not the goal but are indeed "stepping stones" along
the path to a conscious and more spiritual life.

Meditation and psychotherapy, as well as empathagenic and psychedelic
medicines, can all be powerful tools to facilitate this kind of
transformation.  If used in combination, they can be incredibly complementary
and powerful.
Thanks for opening this discussion!

Steven Fenwick, Ph.D.

In a message dated 1/14/02 8:00:21 PM, dan.merkur@xxxxxxxxxxx writes:

>I'd like to share an idea about psychotherapeutic technique.  In Mahayana
>
>Buddhism, there is a pairing of two kinds of meditation:  a meditation
>that
>
>leads to the experience of samadhi, which is euphoric; and then mindfulness
>
>or insight meditation, which is analytic.  In the original Method of John
>
>Wesley (hence the term, "Methodism" for the Protestant denomination he
>
>founded), there was again a pairing of two kinds of meditation.  One, called
>
>the practice of the presence of God, aimed at experiences of God's immediate
>
>presence, which were euphoric; the second, called "watching," was a close
>
>analysis of one's sins, and often enough disturbing.  People prior to Wesley
>
>had used the same two meditations but in the reversed order:  first the
>
>purgation of sins, then the encounter with God.  Wesley reversed the
>
>traditional order because he believed that a sense of God's love provided
>
>the strength needed to address the guilt involved in a history of sin.
>
>Freud's remarks on the theory of technique suggest a similar pattern.
>Freud
>
>was emphatic that a "positive transference," equivalent to the "rapport"
>in
>
>hypnosis, was the curative principle in psychoanalysis.  He wrote things
>
>like:  Psychoanalysis cures through love, because it is only the patient's
>
>love for the analyst that causes the patient to believe in the analyst's
>
>interpretations (the latter, of course, are often difficult, disturbing,
>
>even painful.)  So here once again is the idea that good technique:  (1)
>
>begins by promoting euphoria, and then (2) spends that part or all of that
>
>emotional capital by using it to sustain the personality during the rigours
>
>of analysis.  It should also be remembered that Freud claimed, and most
>
>psychoanalysts have always agreed, that psychoanalysis is a technique for
>
>increasing the patient's self-understanding; and that such cure as takes
>
>place takes place as a side-effect, simply because a patient who knows
>
>him/herself better, is less conflicted, and able to choose both means and
>
>goals that have greater self-advantage

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