Consciousness Homeostasis for Psychotherapeutic Healing : With special reference to Jain Philosophy

Abstract

The healing from any ailment entails the comprehensive management of the individual’s bio-psycho-socio-spiritual context. The effect of psychological domains on one’s physical health indicate the scope of study of consciousness. Scientific psychological research findings along with the prevailing ancient traditions (religion, philosophy, culture) of India, have given a green signal to the major role of consciousness in one’s well being. The present study aims to analyze the scope of psychosomatic healing with the perspective of Jain philosophy, which covers a vast multifold understanding of consciousness with the word ‘chetana’. Early canonical literature like Tattvarthsutra, Sarvarthasiddhi , Pravachansaar, Raajvaartik of Jain Philosophy have described 6 stages of Consciousness and 2 dimensions for its manifestation where cognition is a primary manifestation of the consciousness. It was seen that an absolute neutrality of all components of cognition and consciousness such as emotion, thought, comprehension, apprehension, feeling, perception, experience, etc. when measured and quantified as an absolute zero, reached the state of consciousness homeostasis; wherein a balanced level of consciousness leads to a balanced psychological state. The study presented a model of information processing of consciousness, as described in Jain philosophy for achieving consciousness homeostasis for psychotherapy, providing us ancient and novel principles for psychotherapeutics, and paving a way for an application-based consciousness theory that is transferable to a clinical setup in the dynamics of therapy.