"The Mandala Experience : Visions of the Center in Schizophrenic and Fictional Accounts of Disintegration"

[Doug Millison]

from the PSYART list:



I'm happy to announce an intersting new article in the PsyArt journal, a
Jungian
study of schizophrenia by Leslie Trueman at Rutgers University.  The title is:
The Mandala Experience : Visions of the Center in Schizophrenic and Fictional
Accounts of Disintegration.  And here is its abstract:

              Schizophrenia
              is commonly viewed as a paradigm of disintegration, but C.G. Jung
              and J. Weir Perry were among those who noticed that
schizophrenics
              often have visions of the mandala, a symbol of the center. These
              visions, or "mandala experiences" are in Jung's words,
            "an attempt at self-healing" through "the
construction
              of a central point to which everything is related." Two
schizophrenic
              experiences of mandalas are given to illustrate. One experience
              is Jung's who arguably had a breakdown of schizophrenic
proportions.
              The other can be found in the life of John Nash, a schizophrenic
              made famous by the recent film biography,A Beautiful
Mind.
              The presence of such hitherto undetected moments of
constructiveness
              during psychic distintegration prompts a reevaluation of writers
              such as Kafka, who are commonly viewed as poets of
disintegration.
              His Description of a Struggle is a search for, and
temporary
              attainment of the healing center amidst such psychic
disintegration.


http://www.clas.ufl.edu/ipsa/journal/index.htm


(The article doesn't seem to be posted yet, but I expect it will be soon.)