Workshop on
The Altered Self and Altered Self-Experience
May 30-31, 2013
New University of Lisbon
From a theoretical point of view the experiences in which the feeling
of self is temporarily or permanently altered, pose opportunities to
apply, critically verify or even renew theories of the self.
The altered self, from a human point of view, gains its most relevance
when it is related to psychological sufferings, their comprehension,
relief or treatment. However, not all altered self-experiences imply
suffering or respective treatment. In eastern (and some western)
philosophical traditions a „No-Self“ is considered. Techniques of a
Self/ No- self include states of meditation, mindfulness or effortless
attention. Moreover, for some, self-alterations are desired as in
technically achieved, or drug induced suspensions of a “fixed”,
„regular“, „normalized“ or „orthodox“ experience of self. Other
self-alterations are even conceived as deliberately induced
„enhancements“ of the self.
Different conceptual and clinical notions of the altered Self and
different modes of altered self-experience will be explored in this
intensive workshop in order to clarify the notion of the self.
Organizers:
Dr. Jorge Gonçalves jorgealvesena...@gmail.com
Dr. Alexander Gerner alexanderger...@gmail.com
(Members of the Research Project: Cognitive Foundation of the Self)
“Fundamentos Cognitivos do Si”
Call for abstracts:
DEADLINE FOR ABSTRACTS: 20th of April 2013
ACCEPTANCE NOTIFICATION: until 25th of April 2013
Here a list of possible (not necessary, nor exclusive) topics to be
treated in the workshop with some examples
(1) What can (Psycho-) pathologies of the self from different perspectives
(Phenomenology, Psychiatry, Psychoanalysis, Philosophy of Mind,
Evolutionary
Psychology, Cognitive (Neuro-) Sciences etc.) tell us about the
phenomenon of the self?
Examples:
- Different notions of self/other in Autism/ Schizophrenia/
Dissociated Identity
Disorder/ ADHD etc.
(2) Different conceptual approaches towards the altered self in
philosophy of psychiatry
and modes of treatment
Examples:
- Dysfunctional/ disrupted/ disturbed/ pathologic/ abnormal/
suffering/ ill/
partitioned/ split/ restituted or altered Self
- Dichotomies of „order/disorder“ „normality/pathology“,
„regularity/irregularity“ in
relation to the self in „mental disorders“
- Altered self- other relations
- Altered social and ecologic self and its psychosomatic co-relations
- Non- reductionistic accounts of the altered self in philosophy and
psychiatry
(3) Altered self in between the minimal/ primordial bodily self and
the extended/
personal self
(4) Mineness, Ownership, Self-Control and its exuberance or denial in
altered self states
Examples:
- Thought insertion, dissociative self states, Self delusion, Self
deception, Self
rejection, delirium, hallucinating Self (auditory, visual, vestibular
hallucinations)
(5) Constitution, change/dynamics and alteration of the unity of self
Examples:
- The unity/disunity of self
-The unity/disunity of the self in between first- person and second-
person
perspective
- (Dis-) unity of the Self : Split self, Altered Self-demarcation,
self- consistancy, selfcoherence
- Transitivism, Ipsiety, territorialization/ desterritorialization of
the Self
(6) Modeling or transcending the self? Philosophical concepts and the
praxis of the No-
Self in western and eastern (buddist, Indian, Japanese, Chinese)
psychological
philosophical traditions
(7) Altered bodily self-awareness: Altered self- affection, Hyper- and
hypo-responsiveness
of the bodily self
Examples:
- Hyperreflexive, self-centered or hyperactive self
- hyperbolic self-experience
- altered existential feelings of self:
- Self as stranger: being in the wrong body, feeling dead, changes in
the feeling of
vitality etc.
(8) Altered Self-agency and altered self-concepts
(9) Altered Corporality of the self, altered self –perception,
disembodiment and
autoscopic self-experiences,
Examples:
- Self in Out-of-body experiences and different forms of autoscopic
experience
(polyopic autoscopy, heautoscopy, the feeling of a presence etc.)
- Constitution and alteration of the first- and second- person
perspective in
autoscopic experiences
- Doubles of self
- Altered bodily experience between selfhood and otherness
(10) Techniques of alteration of the self and its philosophical groundings
Examples:
- Self- techniques
- Altered self-experience in flow and effortless attention
- Techniques of mindfulness, compassion, wisdom and meditation as
altered selfexperience
- Philosophical approaches to self-techniques and self-development
(11) Drugs and altered self-experience: pharmacological and
technological inductions of
altered self-experience.
Examples:
- Pharmacological alteration of the self
- Altered Self and the drive for intoxication
(12) Self-enhancement: Philosophical issues in non-invasive and
invasive (Brain-)
