We must at all times remember, that the decision to take your own life is as vast and complex and my

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We must at all times remember, that the decision
to take your own life is as vast and complex and
mysterious as life itself. Al Alvarez, The Savage
God
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Suicidality as a Crisis of the Self

• Popular myth
• depression is the major cause of suicide
• Suicidality is best understood as a crisis of the
  self
• sui in suicide, both victim and perpetrator
• closer to the lived experience
• encompasses whole person physical, mental,
  relational and spiritual
• immediately raises important questions that
  suicidology largely ignores, especially
• who or what is this self that is in crisis?

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Integral Model - 4 Quadrants
Exterior
Interior
Subjective
I
It
Objective
Intentional (felt experience)
Behavioural (observable)
Phenomenology
Psychology/Psychiatry

• Validity aesthetic
• personal meaning/values
• integrity, sincerity

• Validity empirical
• observable, measurable
• testable, repeatable

Its
We
Inter-Objective
Inter-Subjective
Social
Cultural
Sociology/Ecology
Anthropology

• Validity functional fit
• cohesion, efficiency
• ecological, economic

• Validity moral
• shared meaning/values
• ethics, justness

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4 Quadrants of Mental Health
Third-Person (visible)
First-Person (invisible)

• Lived/felt experience
• personal, private
• full of meaning
• stories, self-talk
• consumer perspective

• Observable behaviour
• value neutral
• medical, pharmaceutical
• behaviour modification
• therapies (e.g. CBT)

• Mutually shared experience
• shared meaning-making
• collective story-telling
• peer support
• consumer delivered
• services

• Social infrastructure
• hospitals, services etc
• community development
• public policies
• laws (Mental Health Act)

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The Full Spectrum (Levels) of Consciousness
Sources Plotinus Aurobindo St.
Teresa Grof Steiner Baldwin Habermas Maslow Buddh
ism Yoga Kabbalah Vedanta Theosophy Sufism
Non-Dual Spirit
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AQAL All Levels, All Quadrants
Third-Person
First-Person
I - intentional
IT - behavioural
WE - cultural
ITS - social
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Evidence-Based Science
Third-Person
First-Person
I - intentional
IT - behavioural
WE - cultural
ITS - social
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Evidence-Based Science
Third-Person
First-Person
I - intentional
IT - behavioural
WE - cultural
ITS - social
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Flatland
the great nightmare of scientific materialism
was upon us (Whitehead), the nightmare of
one-dimensional man (Marcuse), the disqualified
universe (Mumford), the colonisation of art and
morals by science (Habermas), the disenchantment
of the world (Weber) a nightmare I have also
called flatland Ken Wilber, Integral Psychology
The much touted evidence-based research,
policy and practice in mental health in Australia
today is an ideological flatland nightmare
(Webb, 2006)
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David Chalmers (Consciousness Studies) first-per
son data are data about subjective experiences
that are directly available only to the subject
having those experiences The distinctive task
of a science of consciousness is to
systematically integrate two key classes of data
into a scientific framework third-person data
about behaviour and brain processes, and
first-person data about subjective
experience our methods for gathering
first-person data are quite primitive, compared
to our methods for gathering third-person data
the former have not received nearly as much
attention
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a major research problem even for the
neuroscientist they found themselves having to
attend to this question of subjective experience
whether they wanted to or not (Chalmers) Francis
co Varela (neuroscientist) to deprive our
scientific examination of this phenomenal realm
amounts to either amputating life of its most
intimate domains, or else denying scientific
explanatory access to it. In both cases the move
is unsatisfactory Varela Shear, The View From
Within
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Chalmers and Varela on Spirituality
The Buddhist traditions and other contemplative
traditions have a lot to offer these guys have
been studying subjective experience for many
years from the inside, theyve been gathering
what we might call the first person data about
the mind David Chalmers it would be a great
mistake of western chauvinism to deny such
observations as data and their potential validity
Varela Shear
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Third-Person
First-Person
I - intentional
IT - behavioural
Suicide Prevention
WE - cultural
ITS - social
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Ken Wilber Integral Psychology Consciousness,
spirit, psychology, therapy, Shambhala, Boston
2000 Integral Spirituality A Startling New Role
for Religion in the Modern and Postmodern World,
Integral Books, Boston 2006 The Integral Vision,
Shambhala, Boston 2007 David Webb 'Self, Soul and
Spirit Suicidology's blind spots?' New Paradigm
September 2003 - online at www.vicserv.org.au/publ
ications/new_para Bridging the Spirituality
Gap Australian e-Journal for the Advancement of
Mental Health (AeJAMH) Vol 4(1) 2005 - online at
www.auseinet.com/journal
Or contact me davidwebbo_at_gmail.com