The primordial mind and the psychoses☆

Earlier versions of this paper were presented at the ISPS conference in Copenhagen, June 2009, and at a symposium in Sydney, Australia, February 2010.

Abstract

Primordial mental activity (PMA) is a normal way that mind works both in learning and expression that is qualitatively different from rational realistic self-reflective thought. It appears to have a distinctive neurological circuitry and to be present from the onset of life. It is driven by somatic sensation and affect, it is enactive and concrete, holistic and de-centered, and produces states of belief and actualization that disregard time and logical causality and do not distinguish internal from external reality. This modality is responsible for dreaming and it predominates in infancy and early childhood. In normal adult life many of its manifestations are ordinarily suppressed (unconscious) and others are more or less adaptively controlled and regulated by thought, including parent-infant bonding, spiritual states and creativity. In pathogenic developmental circumstances that thwart the development of thought and the integration of thought and PMA, the manifestations of PMA predominate in socially maladaptive ways we know as psychoses.

Keywords:

• primordial mind
• psychosis
• psychoanalysis
• culture and mind

Notes

Earlier versions of this paper were presented at the ISPS conference in Copenhagen, June 2009, and at a symposium in Sydney, Australia, February 2010.

1. Permission was granted for use of the material in the vignettes.