The Unique Distress of Ego Dissolution (Part 6)
In entry 6 in our series on ego dissolution (pulled from my graduate research on the phenomenon) we continue exploring why counselors and mental health professionals should care about ego dissolution, focusing on how ego dissolution seems to entail unique forms of distress that aren’t explained by conventional models of mental health.
In counseling psychology, models of human experience help us to research, understand, and ultimately, treat painful or harmful conditions such as depression or anxiety. In the absence of well researched models and treatment protocols, counselors are left without empirically supported tools. If ego death can entail types of distress that do not fit in established models, how could counselors be expected to help a client who is experiencing this distress? Perhaps new models are needed to account for this distress so that appropriate interventions can be developed and tested.
Unfortunately, there is strong evidence that spiritual and mystical experiences that entail ego death often (or perhaps always) come with specific types of distress. In a qualitative study of 10 spiritual teachers who went through intense spiritual awakening experiences, including ego death, a number of patterns emerged that would be of interest to counselors. First, most of the participants experienced unusual physical symptoms related to their spiritual development, including things like felt (in the somatic sense) senses of presence, temporary paralysis, beams of energy pouring in or out of the body, or massive energetic movements within the body (Tzu, Bannerman, & Griffith, 2015). Given the lack of culturally acceptable explanations for these kinds of physical experiences, it’s likely that some people who go through this may experience considerable confusion and distress. Distress itself even seemed to be an integral part of the journey. For some, dissatisfaction with normal, ego-identified consciousness began as early as childhood, and this distress propelled them into spiritual investigations (Tzu, Bannerman, & Griffith, 2015). In the more acute stages following the initial experiences of ego dissolution, the participants had to contend with intense experiences of terror and psychic death. For some, this terror lasted years, and participants experienced it in a variety of ways, though the terror seemed to be connected to the death of the narrative sense of self (the ego) (Tzu, Bannerman, & Griffith, 2015). Another phenomenological study on those who underwent intense spiritual awakenings (involving ego death) reported similar findings. Of the 25 participants, 22 underwent intense trauma or turmoil before their spiritual awakening and 13 had significant problems adjusting to their new state of being after ego dissolution (Taylor, 2013. It seems that distress may be an essential ingredient in the process of ego death.
Though fear of death or grief from the loss of identity have been studied and addressed with evidence-based counseling treatments (Menzies, Zuccala, Sharpe, & Dar-Nimrod, 2018), these constructs miss the nuance of the distress that was described above. There seems to be something important about the type of distress inherent to ego death, as it entails an unparalleled psychological and existential shift in an individual. The subjects of this study were so struck by their experiences that they had to relearn how to participate in the world, or even how to reclaim basic functions, such as communication and memory (Tzu, Bannerman, & Griffith, 2015). Another unique challenge was learning how to function without ego in a world that was built on the assumptions and practices that made sense from the ego-centric perspective (Tzu, Bannerman, & Griffith, 2015). In spiritual language, this was described as moving into duality from the nondual state of being, and most participants had to contend with this challenge for a long time.
Given how unusual and unique this type of distress is, it follows that psychology needs new models to account for it. Without further research into the relationship between distress and ego death, counselors may have nothing to offer clients who are struggling in this area.
In the next entry, we will examine what possibilities for well-being lay beyond ego dissolution.
