In times of difficulty, time-honored methods of transformation can accelerate healing. Transpersonal psychology has encouraged these practices, and many psychotherapists have responded by recommending exercises traditionally used as spiritual disciplines. Within this paradigm, fasting can be a practical and effective means of generating a positive change.
Frances Vaughan (1993) suggested that fasting is a useful clinical intervention in transpersonal psychotherapy. According to Vaughan, methods like fasting, drumming, and chanting produce an altered state of consciousness that can have "powerful therapeutic effects" (p. 164). Brant Cortright (1997) echoed this belief, calling fasting "an effective non-drug technique useful for inducing an altered state of multidimensional consciousness" (p. 16).
Fasting is a versatile clinical intervention because it can be used briefly or for longer periods in a supervised setting. Additionally, it can be used therapeutically in conjunction with other therapies. Stanislav Grof (1998) recommended fasting before engaging in LSD psychotherapy, also known as "psychedelic treatment" (p. 289).
Fasting, like other spiritual practices, can have a therapeutic affect on consciousness known as "liminality," a transitional period or phase, during which the participant lacks social status and suspends their state of being (Peters, 1975). During the fast, the participant experiences consciousness in a transitional state that correlates with a suspension of everyday activities and social conventions. Anthropologist and psychologist Larry G. Peters (1975) explained this phenomenon, "Altered states of consciousness are often induced here, for example though fasting, psychedelic ingestion, continual dancing, or sensory deprivation" (p. 209).
During liminality, fasting facilitates change by causing a paradigm shift in beliefs and values. It transforms us at our deepest level by challenging our core attachments. One of our most dominant beliefs is that we need food. In some instances, this need is so big that it overshadows our ability to see clearly. There is a Zulu axiom, "The continually stuffed body cannot see secret things" (as cited in Webster, 1973, p. 164).
From the day we are born, the desire for food reigns dominant. As newborn infants we immediately cry for food. The food drive is present from the beginning to the end of life—it rarely leaves. To the degree that our relationship with food operates on an unconscious level, fasting can be difficult. Psychotherapist Stephen Harrod Buhner (2001) claimed, "If you believe that food is love, stopping eating will be experienced by your deepest self as a denial of love" (p. 46). If we associate food with love and nurturing, fasting will challenge our most fundamental belief systems. For those of us who have unconsciously avoided our feelings with food, fasting provides an opportunity to face the pain we have hidden beneath our relationship with it.
As soon as we become attached to something, we set up a situation where we will eventually have to grieve the loss of it. Because our attachment to food is interrupted during a fast, grief is a significant part of the experience. When we are deprived of food for a long enough period, a mourning process begins. Unresolved grief and trauma surface, demanding resolution. The fasting mind wraps itself around unresolved bereavement in an effort to resolve it. As losses are reconciled, the fasting mind examines other attachments to people, places, and things. Each and every emotional attachment is considered with the potential of reframing the relationship and forming a healthier, more detached perspective. The larger the amount and degree of attachments, the more chaotic this process can become. Although fasting removes the chatter and the clutter, it also creates internal chaos as the faster asks, "What is the purpose of my life? Why am I here?"
Fasting creates suffering on many levels, but the degree to which we are able to feel our suffering is parallel to our ability to feel joy. Fasting is an invitation to suffer in a very real sense, but as Buhner noted, "Paradoxically, in such an act we find new life, new direction and joy" (p. 31). John Firman and Ann Gila (2002) called this being "surprised by joy," realized as a higher consciousness breaks into our awareness (p. 33). Firman and Gila pointed out that such experiences have the power to transform our lives as a new realm of human experience is revealed to us.
Robert Assagioli (2007) suggested that these higher experiences activate feelings from the lower unconscious, creating anxiety as we feel wounded, fearful, angry, and depressed. Similar to other consciousness-raising events, fasting can potentially create psychological and spiritual disturbances. When fasting, we may feel blocked and find ourselves struggling to accelerate the release of whatever mechanisms are preventing access to a higher level of awareness. The struggle to integrate lower and higher states of consciousness can be most unpleasant, but the end results can be outstanding.
The act of fasting is a transformative event in a spiritual life. Psychiatrist and theologian Gerald F. May (2005) asserted that if you live a spiritual life, it is inevitable that you will one day be thrown into madness, what Saint John of the Cross called "the dark night of the soul." Stanislav and Christina Grof (1989) referred to this experience as a "spiritual emergency," an occurrence where "Individuals experiencing such episodes may feel that their sense of identity is breaking down, that their old values no longer hold true, and that the very ground beneath their personal realities is radically shifting" (back cover). Similar to the dark night of the soul, Grof and Grof (1989) note, "Episodes of this kind have been described in sacred literature of all ages as a result of meditative practices and as signposts of the mystical path" (p. x).
There is no doubt that fasting can be problematic and even dangerous. However, when used with mindfulness, it can provide exceptional human experiences. For devotees, fasting is a means of creating mystical and peak experiences that are extraordinary events. As a shared practice among spiritual seekers throughout the ages, fasting continues to offer the opportunity of a new way of being.
References
http://www.fastingresearch.org/fasting/psychotherapy.cfm
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