The New Psychiatry
 

 The New Psychopharmacology
& 'Mind-Molecular Resonance'

 Peter Wilberg  

A successful athlete requires not only education, training and practice but also desire, belief, emotional motivation and intent – the will to succeed. He or she also requires food and water. The mind needs and makes use of natural molecular nutrients to maintain proper neurological functioning in the same way that the body of the athlete needs and makes use of nutrients to maintain physical performance potentials. Such mental nutrients include neurotransmitters, amino acids and their molecular precursors or potentiators. Supplies of these molecular nutrients can be depleted by intense mental activity, as well as by emotional trauma and stress, just as much as by physical activity and exertion. Major amino acid depletions have been found in patients suffering from anxiety, depression, chronic fatigue syndrome and a whole range of clinically diagnosed somatic and psychiatric disorders, including ‘schizophrenia’ and there are also considerable variations in individual nutrient requirements.¹ Since they are naturally occurring molecules however, amino acids and their precursors cannot be patented and therefore cannot be turned into a source of mega-profits for the pharmaceutical corporations. Hence the widespread ignorance or blanket suppression of information about their benefits in the psychiatric and medical profession, together with attempts to impose bans on their manufacture, import and use supported by corporate pharmaceutical lobbies.

It must be emphasised that patented psychiatric medications do not increase the supply of these nutrients. Instead they temporarily increase or ‘potentiate’ their use or prevent their reuptake by neural receptors. The result is often a ‘down-regulation’ or 'de-potentiation' of the natural functioning of these receptors and a depletion in the supply of natural neurological nutrients. That is because such medications are not naturally occurring molecules but xenobiotic – ‘foreign’ (Greek xeno) to the human body and brain, and therefore disruptive of natural neurological processes. Far from ‘regulating’ or ‘restoring’ proper brain functioning and healing mental ‘disorders’, psychiatric medications actively bring about an artificial palliative dysregulation or ‘disorder’ of neurological functioning which - although it may at first feel effective - will invariably bring about damaging and counter-productive effects. However, so-called ‘orthomolecular’ psychiatry and pharmacology is based on the use of naturally occurring molecules, in particular those amino acids such as gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) and tryptophan which either serve directly as neurotransmitters or which aid in their natural production.

In both orthodox and ‘orthomolecular’ psychiatry however, there is a basic misunderstanding of the relation between mind, mood and molecules. Both forms of psychiatry share the misconception that molecules, natural or artificial, are directly ‘mind altering’ in the sense of ‘causing’ changes in an individual’s mood or mental state.¹ This is comparable to claiming that just because a top athlete needs a good supply of natural nutrients or can improve their performance with the aid of artificial drugs, anyone taking those nutrients or drugs will become a top athlete. Orthomolecular psychiatry reinforces the reductionistic myth of orthodox psychiatry - namely that mental functioning, mood and emotion are expressions of neurological functioning. The belief in a direct causal relation between molecules and mental states seems to be confirmed by the powerful  ‘mind altering’ effect of recreational and hallucinogenic drugs, natural or artificial as well as by the effects of psychiatric drugs, natural or artificial. On the other hand we know that individual responses to such drugs – as to all drugs vary enormously. Until now however, there has been no alternative explanation for the relation between mind, mood and emotions on the one hand and molecules, natural or artificial, on the other. Like orthomolecular psychiatry, The New Psychiatry supports the use of naturally occurring molecules - both as alternatives to patented psychiatric medications and as a way of overcoming the damaging neurological effects or chronic dependency that xenobiotic drugs create. In addition, however, The New Psychiatry is based on a new a-causal model of the relation between mind and molecules. Based as it is on Rupert Sheldrake’s theory of ‘morphic resonance’ (from the Greek morphe, meaning ‘pattern’ or ‘form’) I term this alternative model the model of mind-molecular resonance. 

Athletes who have an adequate supply of necessary molecular nutrients do not become athletes or perform well because of them, but rather because - given the right mental attitude - the availability of these molecules in their bodies and brains allows their physical performance potentials to be fully embodied. Put in other terms, a state of natural isomorphic ‘resonance’ is created between the mental patterns of the athlete and the molecular patterns of the nutrients themselves, a resonance which amplifies the working of both mind and molecules.  Quite the opposite occurs when artificial psychiatric drugs are prescribed for mental ‘illness’. A state of mind-molecular dissonance is created between the mental-emotional patterning (morphe) of the patient and the pattern of neurological functioning induced by the drug.  This is the reason why psychiatric drugs taken for anxiety or depression often have so-called ‘paradoxical’ effects – heightening anxiety, releasing suicidal thoughts or resulting in extreme psychotic states. The paradoxical effect is an amplification of mental-emotional patterns resulting not from mind-molecular resonance but from mind-molecular dissonance – a battle between mind and molecule. As for the effect of hallucinogenic and recreational drugs, these are effective not because the molecules produce mind-altering effects or ‘altered states’ but because their effects on neurological patterning are in resonance with alternate mind-patterns and consciousness of which we are normally unaware. Drugs can no more cause hallucinations than they can cause dreams.  The fact is we all dream – and do so all the time at a different level of consciousness. Specific molecules however, activate alternate neurological patterns in isomorphic resonance with the alternate patterning of our dreaming mind – but do so while we are awake - thus bringing about hallucinogenic states that can be likened to a type of ‘lucid dreaming’ or  ‘dreaming awake’.  Altered states are not necessarily pleasant. Like dreams they can also be a nightmarish journey - a ‘bad trip’ that results from a combination of mind-molecular resonance with alternate but already disturbed mental patterns of the individual, or mind-molecular dissonance with their own ‘normal’ patterns, healthy or disturbed. The often strange or estranged, dull or ‘limbo’ like mental states experienced by people taking legally prescribed medications is also the effect of a brain and mind-confusing combination of mind-molecular resonance and dissonance.

From the perspective of The New Psychiatry and Pharmacology, what Sheldrake terms ‘morphic fields’ are essentially field-patterns of awareness. ‘Morphic resonance’ is an intrinsic relation between such field-patterns and the underlying field-states of awareness from which they arise. ‘Moods’ are examples of pervasive field-states of awareness which give rise to particular field-patterns of awareness – whether patterns of thought or emotion, behaviourial, linguistic and perceptual patterns. But as Plato recognised long ago, form or pattern as such is nothing essentially material. You can perceive a material object such as a  round and red-and-white patterned tablecloth and pick it up but you cannot pick up its form and colour pattern as such. The human body as such is essentially nothing but patterns, for whilst its actual matter is constantly replaced its pattern maintains its overall integrity. Nor are ‘mind’ and ‘body’ two separate entities which then interact with one another in mysterious ways. The fashionable term ‘bodymind’ therefore, seeks to bind together as a ‘holistic’ unity together two things – ‘body’ and ‘mind’ - neither of which exist as independent entities. A mere molecule of matter too, is essentially a structure or pattern – the pattern as such being nothing essentially material. Both 'mind' and 'body', as well as 'mind' and 'matter' therefore, are essentially pattern. A coin has two sides but those two sides, whilst absolutely distinct have no separate reality. The singular nouns ‘mind’ and ‘body’, as well as the compound noun ‘bodymind’ would therefore be better replaced by a single term –  morphic body or 'pattern-body'. Like a coin, this body does indeed have two sides – a physical body or organism and a psychical organism. What unites these two sides of the bodymind ‘coin’ is no mere compound word but the fact that both organisms are made up of the same thing - organising field-patterns of awareness. These include not only those mental and emotional patterns that make up the ‘psychical organism’ but those patterns of molecular and cellular awareness that are materialised in the ‘physical organism’.

Moods, as underlying field-states of awareness are the source of diverse potential field-patterns of individualised psychical awareness. It is through resonance with isomorphic material patterns - molecular and cellular – that individualised psychical field-patterns of awareness are actualised and stabilised through the physical organism. Mediating this ‘morphic resonance’ however, are those generalised patterns of molecular and cellular awareness materialised in the physical organism as such. The term ‘mind-molecular resonance’ therefore, should not be taken as referring to some disembodied or immaterial mind on the one hand, and molecular matter on the other. Instead mind-molecular resonance is essentially ‘morphic resonance’ – a resonance (or dissonance) between particular field-patterns of awareness (mental or material) which in turn give form to underlying moods or field-states of awareness. It is the lack of isomorphism and resonance between field-states of awareness and their formed expression – mental and molecular – that is the cause of ‘dis-ease’ or ‘morphic dissonance’.  

Major Mind-Molecular Nutrients and Supplements

1.      GABA (gamma aminobutryric acid)

2.      Glutamine (GABA precursor)

3.      Tryptophan or 5-HTP (serotonin precursor)

4.      L-Theanine

5.      L-Phenylanaline

6.      L-Taurine

7.      Magnesium

8.      Niacin and B-6

References:

1. “The propositions basic to orthomolecular psychiatry are as follows: When the brain is biochemically disorganized, so is the mind. There is great interindividual variation in biochemical needs and metabolic processes. Some nutrient requirements … may vary up to 100-fold between individuals.”
Abram Hoffer  Orthomolecular Psychiatry in Theory and Practice
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Bibliography:

Sheldrake, R. A New Science of Life - the Hypothesis of Morphic Resonance

Wilberg, P. The Qualia Revolution - from Quantum Physics to Cosmic Qualia Science

Wilberg, Peter  Inner Universe - Fields of Awareness and Fundamental Science