Mirrored in Nature
November 6, 2005

I am becoming very interested in the whole issue of mental illness as a psychobiological variant on autoimmune disorders (there are many overlapping biological correlates). Arieti commented on the unbearable vision of the self which creates such panic and anxiety/depression. I have heard patient-after-patients' delusions reflect on compensatory processes in reaction to an unlivable self/life-a problematic living within one's own body and mind-self/world alterations reflecting on a fractured, permeable sense of self. Patients have told me they hate themselves, would like to strangle and kill themselves (me as well), that they are "bad seeds," etc. There seems to be a strong reaction against the core of the self--an estrangement from the ground of one's being (separation), as Martti Siirala would say, one in which we all share (there are collective forms of psychosis--one only has to be reminded of the Holocaust, white racism against non-whites, etc.). Yes, even if we are not so diagnosed, we all share in this alienation and forms of self-hatred and fear. I wish to thank Pamela Saunders for her thoughts and inspiration in thinking about this subject more deeply. She is forever challenging herself and her friends and colleagues to think more relationally as well as intra-psychically.

For persons with a more permeable sense of self, the awareness of how interconnected we are is quite anxiety provoking (or how alone we also can feel)

I take very seriously the Buddhist principle that all of nature and beings are interconnected. Contemporary physics has demonstrated this much to my satisfaction. Closer to home, I am absolutely amazed by the striking similarities between our bodies, in particular our brains and nervous systems and forms found and mirrored in nature -- for example, the similarities among species (the wide overlap in genes and neurobiology between species). The "transcendental geometry" (the phrase used by philosopher Paul Valéry) in the kinship and beauty we see in nature which reflects deep structural connections between what's us and what is in the natural world. For example, if you cross-section the spinal cord it strikingly resembles a butterfly. The climbing, mossy circuitry of the `cerebellum` has a framework similar to certain filigreed sea corals, while the folds of the cerebral cortex bear a striking resemblance to the form of what's called "brain coral." Green alga looks remarkably like nervous tissue. One source detailing this is The Architecture and Design of Man and Woman: The Marvel of the Human Body, Revealed by Alexander Tsiaras and Barry Werth (2004), published by Doubleday. Tsiaras, using advanced medical and computer technology-including full body scans, molecular modeling tools, etc,-reveals the human body's intricately constructured systems.

This is a somewhat long-winded way of saying that I do not think it's possible to define what is schizophrenia apart from self/world relatedness, including the wider sociocultural context. I remain skeptical of perspectives which attempt to define schizophrenia as something which solely exists within an individual as an isolated entity. A metaphoric parallel within psychoanalysis, as noted by Michael Varga (October 2005) in his article, "Analysis of transference as transformation of enactment" published in the new issue of Psychoanalytic Review, would be the impossibility of intrepreting transference from a position external to the patient/analysand. In regard specifically to schizophrenia, I would recommend reading Gaetano Benedetti's distinction between 'classical'psychopathology' (symptoms apart from an empathic, containing relationship) and "progressive psychopathology" (symptoms transformed dialogically). And as Martti Siirala was fond of saying, the illness as it is encountered, is the illness at the next phase.

Brian Koehler PhD
New York University
brian_koehler@psychoanalysis.net