Implications of Dissociation in the Clinical Treatment of the Ego-Centric Paradigm

Abstract

Utilizing the hermeneutic method, dissociation is interpreted as the consequence of the industrialized-West’s cultural adaptation to the self as a binary system (mind split from matter), and a fundamental mechanism of the mind imperative to the critical functioning of the faculty of imagination and the production of meaning. Dialoguing with depth psychological, transpersonal, existential, eco-psychological texts, the construct of dissociation emerges as a perspective into the cultural heritage of substance dualism perpetrating a conceptual reinforcement of an artificial divide of the self, culminating into catastrophic consequences and suffering. A mythopoetic sensibility coupled with an awareness of the psychophysically-neutral existence of mind distinct in Jungian theory is identified as nourishing the recovery of the spiritualization of matter and the embodiment of spirit for the sake of psychological health and well-being. The faculty of imagination is interpreted as the “organ of intelligence” (Cambray, 2016) capable of re-associating our dissociated narrative and amplified for its capacity to combat the cleaving of our true character meant to operate from a foundation of sympathy and compassion (Levin, 2008). The implications of re-associating the industrialized-Western self to its ancient ethics and responsibility, meant to operate from the primacy of our psychological nature, is explored and interpreted in the present research.