COEXing Out A Troubled Baby: The Perinatal Framework of Stanislav Grof
In the article “The Consciousness Research of Stanislav Grof,” Richard Yensen and Donna Dryer describe the clinical experiences of Dr. Grof with thousands of patients who were administered the psychedelic compound LSD. It was from his observations of the inner influence of memory structures, specifically childhood and perinatal memories that arose during these LSD sessions, that Grof created the COEX, or Psychodynamic Experiences and Systems of Condensed Experience: a model to categorize these experiences.
Grof's BPM's, or Basic Perinatal Matrices, describe the 4 death-rebirth themes which were surfacing in his LSD therapy sessions. The experiences described by subjects as they progressed through these matrices ranged from the most profound existential extremes; overwhelmingly negative to a seemingly-cosmic expanse of positivity. While obviously one of the most intense experiences many of these patients had had in their lives, I was forced to ask what actual benefit such therapy provided in the most grounded, everyday, real world sense.
Proposing the prohibition of LSD was to be loosened for use in such therapeutic contexts, would psychiatrists treating patients for depression really wish to prescribe a medication which produces “overwhelming feelings of guilt and inadequacy, enormous anxiety and a total loss of hope in an experience of complete despair?”
What are the ethical considerations of administering a drug which induces overwhelmingly powerful feelings of self-disgust, fear, suicidal thoughts? Do the “benefits” of suicidal thoughts outweigh the physical dangers of heart palpitations, dramatic increases in blood pressure, and intense physical pain reported by Grof's subjects? While it is certainly true that the medical community remains mostly oblivious to the actual subjective effects of LSD, studies like Grof's, admittedly, do little to loosen the mythic substance's Schedule I status. The fact that at one point in the research Grof, himself, began to question if he actually was killing his patients seems to fit into the seemingly-contagious chaotic atmosphere of the study. Picturing thousands of mental patients wailing on the floor in pain; crying, shaking in cold sweats in fetal positions as they writhe across cold institutional tile at Grof's feet. He had given those patients something which caused great pain, both physically and mentally. Of course he would begin to worry for their well-being, if not for the legal repercussions if even one of those patients was telling the truth when they screamed that they were dying and needed help.
More than anything, this outline of Grof's psychedelic research left me wanting to know more about all of those spiritually-transformed patients who made it through the doctor's BPM gauntlet to be reborn on the other side. Specifically, how long did all that cosmic unity and blissful oceanic existence last? I refuse to believe Stan gave birth to a synthesized Buddha and simply sent that glowing soul waddling out the door never to be spoken to again. Hell, even just a quick phone call to check in and see how those oceans of transcendental bliss were fairing 6 months into that “9 to 5” at K-Mart.
I want to hear that all these transformations were permanent, that Grof has found that elusive formula to lifelong wellness in transcendence - however, my own experience finds that even those grand energetic oceans of inward expanse tend, in all their majestic beauty, to harden to a brittle shell resembling that ocean. For even transcendence becomes merely an image of transcendence when we turn to look back at that past self ego has come to defend.
Grof's BPM's, or Basic Perinatal Matrices, describe the 4 death-rebirth themes which were surfacing in his LSD therapy sessions. The experiences described by subjects as they progressed through these matrices ranged from the most profound existential extremes; overwhelmingly negative to a seemingly-cosmic expanse of positivity. While obviously one of the most intense experiences many of these patients had had in their lives, I was forced to ask what actual benefit such therapy provided in the most grounded, everyday, real world sense.
Proposing the prohibition of LSD was to be loosened for use in such therapeutic contexts, would psychiatrists treating patients for depression really wish to prescribe a medication which produces “overwhelming feelings of guilt and inadequacy, enormous anxiety and a total loss of hope in an experience of complete despair?”
What are the ethical considerations of administering a drug which induces overwhelmingly powerful feelings of self-disgust, fear, suicidal thoughts? Do the “benefits” of suicidal thoughts outweigh the physical dangers of heart palpitations, dramatic increases in blood pressure, and intense physical pain reported by Grof's subjects? While it is certainly true that the medical community remains mostly oblivious to the actual subjective effects of LSD, studies like Grof's, admittedly, do little to loosen the mythic substance's Schedule I status. The fact that at one point in the research Grof, himself, began to question if he actually was killing his patients seems to fit into the seemingly-contagious chaotic atmosphere of the study. Picturing thousands of mental patients wailing on the floor in pain; crying, shaking in cold sweats in fetal positions as they writhe across cold institutional tile at Grof's feet. He had given those patients something which caused great pain, both physically and mentally. Of course he would begin to worry for their well-being, if not for the legal repercussions if even one of those patients was telling the truth when they screamed that they were dying and needed help.
More than anything, this outline of Grof's psychedelic research left me wanting to know more about all of those spiritually-transformed patients who made it through the doctor's BPM gauntlet to be reborn on the other side. Specifically, how long did all that cosmic unity and blissful oceanic existence last? I refuse to believe Stan gave birth to a synthesized Buddha and simply sent that glowing soul waddling out the door never to be spoken to again. Hell, even just a quick phone call to check in and see how those oceans of transcendental bliss were fairing 6 months into that “9 to 5” at K-Mart.
I want to hear that all these transformations were permanent, that Grof has found that elusive formula to lifelong wellness in transcendence - however, my own experience finds that even those grand energetic oceans of inward expanse tend, in all their majestic beauty, to harden to a brittle shell resembling that ocean. For even transcendence becomes merely an image of transcendence when we turn to look back at that past self ego has come to defend.