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DEAUTOMATIZATION #0105/ 2005
(  Satoshi Kinoshita )
| Series: | Paintings: Landscape | | Medium: | Acrylic on wooden board with unique artist wooden yellow frame | | Size (inches): | 18.5 x 39.5 (rectangle) / 14.5 x 35.5 - painting size | | Size (mm): | 470 x 1003 (rectangle) / 368 x 902 - painting size | | Catalog #: | PA_072 | | Description: | Signed, titled, date, copyright in magic ink on the reverse / with unique artist wooden yellow frame.
Normally this painting is shown horizontally – the left hand side of this website image is the top of the painting - but it does not really matter, does it?
Delmonte (1995) has suggested that mindfulness meditation involves what is called a "deautomatization" of one's mental processes; that is, one's normal habituations, prejudices, and biases are abandoned, allowing for an enhanced receptivity and pure perception of reality. Thus, without a construction system in which to place them, or without constructs to compare them to past experiences, experiences during mindfulness meditation are seen as true novelties (the "kaleidoscopic" experiences to which Kelly refers).
Meditation and Personal Construct Psychology:
It has been suggested (Delmonte, 1987) that Buddhist meditation involves two main "cognitive sets": the first is constriction: under concentrative meditation, such as mantra repetition. Such focused attention on a singular object serves to curtail cognitive construing; in Kellian terms, this is similar to reducing the number of elements of one's experience that one has to construe. As a result of this severe reduction in constructs (it is presumed that after having considerably repeated a mantra, the only construct the meditator is employing is mantra vs. no-mantra) the meditator reduces her mental construing to virtually nothing; it is for this reason that the meditator may experience the feeling of "no-thought". Though non-verbal constructs, such as the pre-verbal somatic constructs, are employed to maintain the meditator's vitality, all verbally-labeled constructs have been blocked. The state of the attainment of cessation best exemplifies this: as mentioned briefly above, attainment of cessation is one of the goals of concentrative meditation; it is characterized by a general cessation of all mental processes (i.e. absence of verbal construing), accompanied by a purification of all the sense organs. An individual who has attained cessation is distinguishable from a dead individual only by the existence of a "vitality" (Griffiths, 1986) in the meditator; this existence of this vitality may be understood to represent a recourse to an exclusive pre-verbal (that is, vital or somatic) construing by the meditator. Concentrative meditation, in its monotony of repetition (mantra) or focused attention on an object, can be seen to possess no predictive value for the meditator: the repetition of a mantra leads to a stimulus habituation in which the meditator anticipates nothing about the future except for the continued repetition of the mantra. Therefore, the past, present, and future are all seen to consist of that one experience (of the mantra), and hence there is no anticipation of future events. This is apparently contrary to Kelly's very notion of the construct, which he claims is used primarily and even exclusively, to predict and anticipate future events. For this reason, it can be said that during concentrative meditation, there is an absence of any form of cognitive construing.
It has also been suggested that the combination of both focused attention and reduced sensory input, as experienced during concentrative meditation, leads to a sort of hypnogogic state in which there is a "loosening" of one's cognitive construing, thereby resulting in a weakening of any repression barriers that the individual might have erected for defense purposes during a more alert state. This degeneration of normal cognitive construing might provide an opportunity for the expression of repressed material. As stated above, this loosening of cognitive construing might also result in a recourse to non-verbal construing, which may include repressed emotional material.
The second cognitive set suggested by Delmonte is dilation: during mindfulness meditation, there is a suspension of all construing rather than a cessation (as in the case of concentrative meditation). In mindfulness meditation, one sees oneself and one's thought in a nonattached, nonjugmental way, similar to a psychoanalytic "free association", in which there is a "choiceless awareness" of one's mental processes. In Kellian terms, this dilation may be understood as a bombardment of many elements of experience, but without a construction system in which to place them. In other words, novel experiences are neutrally admitted into one's consciousness without being construed. Under the Modulation Corollary, which describes varying degrees of a construct's permeability, mindfulness meditation may be see as a condition of very high permeability: the individual is able to admit into his/her consciousness elements of experience which would not normally be admitted under a less permeable system. In his description of the cognitive construct, Kelly rejected the notion that elements of experience could be admitted into consciousness without being construed to some degree: "[People] must abstract elements in some degree, else their lives would be hopelessly kaleidoscopic and there would be no possibility of internal organization" (Kelly, 1955). Indeed, Kelly stresses the utility of the construct, while meditation considers the imposition of constructs onto elements of experience, something to be overcome. Under the assumptions of Buddhist philosophy, mindfulness meditation is the technique by which the individual, instead of continuing to employ cognitive constructs to interpret mental experience, observes one's own mental processes without those very habitual prejudices (i.e. constructs). Delmonte (1995) has suggested that mindfulness meditation involves what is called a "deautomatization" of one's mental processes; that is, one's normal habituations, prejudices, and biases are abandoned, allowing for an enhanced receptivity and pure perception of reality. Thus, without a construction system in which to place them, or without constructs to compare them to past experiences, experiences during mindfulness meditation are seen as true novelties (the "kaleidoscopic" experiences to which Kelly refers).
Concentrative meditation appears to involve a recourse to non-verbal construing in its absence of any cognitive constructs. Such a "moving down" from verbal to pre-verbal construing has been labeled descendence, or movement from cognitive to somatic construing. This is similar to the psychoanalytic notion of "adaptive regression", in which there is a movement from cognitive, verbal secondary to emotional, somatic pre-verbal primary processes. This descendence may be accompanied by a transcendence, in which there is a feeling of "no-thought" (as seen in concentrative meditation) which emerges from a transcendence above all bipolar construing. Delmonte (1995) has suggested that this blissful state is equivalent to a sense of "oneness" brought about by the meditator's recovery of a pre-verbal experience which no longer confuses the duality of bipolar construing with the unity of reality. In this sense, there is a transcendence of bipolar construing, but not a transcendence of the non-verbal, somatic construing (as the somatic construing is required to maintain the meditator's vitality).
Bruner (1956) elaborated upon Kelly's Personal Construct Psychology by stating that "you are your constructs", implying that an individual is essentially composed of his/her constructs. While Kelly held that the individual and constructs are two distinct entities (i.e. the person creates his/her constructs), Bruner's assertion, that one is in fact composed of one's constructs, suggests that if one transcends one's constructs, then one is essentially transcending oneself, a condition which seems consistent with the goals of Buddhist meditation. Thus, if one is to understand personal constructs from the point of view that an individual can transcend him/herself through transcending his/her constructs, then the experience of non-existence of self and union can be understood within a paradigm of Personal Construct Psychology.
One last, but particularly interesting, comparison between Buddhist meditation and Personal Construct Psychology, is seen in the ways that each conceives of the individual as a "scientist". It is evident from Kelly's Fundamental Postulate and subsequent corollaries that Personal Construct Psychology adheres to a scientific orientation in its emphasis on prediction and control. Such emphasis upon the testing of constructs implies a reliance on the principles of empiricism and pragmatic logic. As has been demonstrated in the preceding discussion of Buddhist psychology, there is a similar Buddhist value placed on the empirical investigation of one's psychological processes. However, one of the goals of Buddhist meditation is to abandon all conceptual thinking, including the abandonment of logical thinking. Thus, while both Personal Construct Psychology and Buddhist meditation consider the individual to be something of a scientist (Kelly's notion of prediction and control; Buddhist meditation's notion of empirically observing one's mental processes and perceptions), Kelly's scientist is an individual who must continue to construe his/her reality in terms of dichotomous constructs that adhere to a criterion of logic and empiricism, while Buddhist meditation is not bound by the requirements of logic. Indeed, Buddhist doctrine warns against conceptualization of, and imposition of logic upon, one's experiences, as such impositions detract from experiencing the world as it really exists. To the extent that it is possible to experience a flux of reality while temporarily holding one's habitual prejudices in abeyance, mindfulness meditation can provide an opportunity for post hoc falsifiable experimentation (Popper, 1985), in which old constructs are open for validation or invalidation. Again, this is contrary to the Kellian notion of person as scientist; Kelly is more in accordance with the philosophy of science of Thomas Kuhn, who asserts that science progresses through a series of paradigms, one supplanting the other over time (Kuhn, 1970). According to Kuhn, scientific paradigms provide the framework for theories to be articulated; such theories then generate hypotheses and predictions about nature. Thus, without the paradigm, there would essentially be no predictions. This view is in accordance with Kelly's constructs, which similarly provide bases for predictions. The Popperian view of science allows for influx of reality without being bound to one's habitual paradigms, whereas Kuhnian science allows reality to be understood only within a particular paradigm (or construct). The Buddhist and Kellian conceptions of the individual as scientist, respectively, are reflective of this distinction.
Conclusions:
Were it not for the similar clinical interest of both Personal Construct Psychology and meditative practices, it is unlikely that a comparison would be initially obvious. Meditation is a traditionally soteriological phenomenon, the religious goals of which may seem inapplicable to a clinical setting. However, the recognition by some psychologists of the calming and insightful psychological benefits of meditation has led to an application of meditation to clinical practices such as hypnosis and stress reduction. In a way, the practice of meditation has been divorced from its originally conceived religious functions. But such a divorce has allowed for a proliferation of intellectual and academic speculation on the mechanisms of meditative practice; hence, meditation has been made amenable to comparison with some modern theories of human consciousness and behavior. This paper has attempted to describe some of the phenomena associated with meditation within the paradigm and theory articulated in George Kelly's Psychology of Personal Constructs. Though Kelly and Buddhism acknowledge certain conditions of human consciousness (the conception of a "self" and dualities in one's construction of reality, for example), Kelly suggests that such conditions are inevitable; his theory of Personal Constructs is devoted to explaining these very conditions in terms of his concept of the "construct". Buddhist philosophy, on the other hand, recognizes those very same conditions, only to disclose their pathological natures. According to Buddhist philosophy, one must transcend such limiting conditions in order to achieve a state of nirvana, or enlightenment (the equivalent of a holistic and blissful experience of reality); meditation is prescribed as a technique for achieving this transcendence.
Future research may concentrate upon the enigmatic experience of the non-existence of self which is purported to accompany advanced levels of certain forms of meditation. The psychological interest in the notion of the "self" has not yet produced any concrete understanding of where and how the "self" is experienced. Dream research might prove to be particularly illuminating, as dreams suggest a phenomenon in which the "self" is of primary importance; the discrepancy lies in the fact that meditation has also been likened to a dream experience in its flood of unconscious material. A more thorough exploration of the nature of dreams may prove fruitful in understanding this state of non-existence of self. A further claim of meditation, that it might lead to the pure experience of reality (free of conceptions and habitual prejudices) suggests that there is a condition in which there is essentially no "thought", in the conventional sense of the word (that is, as composed of ideas, or being characterized by the impositions of concepts onto perceptions); what is this condition in which there is no cognitive construing, yet, peculiarly, characterized by a pure perception of reality? Buddhist doctrine claims that one's perceptions are distorted, similar to a cognitive psychological acknowledgment of the perceptual distortions to which humans are susceptible (e.g. optical illusions). But meditation is unique in its goal of transcending these perceptual distortions; the metaphysical assumption is that a holistic, unitary universe can be experienced through practice of meditation. Whether or not there exists a reality that is independent of representations of it, is questionable. Modern science, in its constructivist orientation (i.e. reality is not an assumed goal; scientific evidence may only "disprove" without ever "proving"; data may only be "consistent" with a given hypothesis, never "testimonial" of any objective reality), runs contrary to the assumptions of meditation.
However, the alliance of meditation and psychoanalytic practice is of clinical interest; as desribed in this paper, meditation has been likened to a hypnogogic state, similar to one which might be useful in psychotherapeutic techniques of gaining access to repressed, unconscious mental material. That meditation is already a popular practice, and one which is only anticipated to grow in the Western world, is testament to at least some effectiveness. While the goals of modern, Western meditative applications may not adhere to the strict, traditional soteriological aims, there are benefits to meditative practice. The Buddha himself recognized that not everyone is prepared to experience the nirvana that results from advanced meditation; the Buddha was a pragmatist in his suggestion that individuals follow a course consistent with the Buddhist doctrines, if not necessarily striving to experience nirvana. Thus, meditation may be seen as a way of gaining insight into one's daily existence and consciousness, without the high religious aims of enlightenment. Seen in this way, meditation has numerous applications, ranging from stress reduction to the aforementioned access to one's unconscious mental processes.
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