Trauma as Development: A Consideration of the Necessity of Trauma as a Catalyst for Transformation

Utilizing alchemical hermeneutics as an approach to exploring how trauma can usher in a new stage of spiritual development, this thesis examines the idea of spiritual transformation held by a healthy ego structure versus the disorientation created by the shattering and loss of one’s global assumptions about oneself, the universe, and God. The goal of most spiritual practice is the absorption of individual consciousness into Universal or God consciousness. This desired ideal is held by practitioners of various methods and traditional religious models. The author used transference dialogues to explore how further spiritual development can occur when the spiritual ideal and the linear nature and trajectory of the practitioner’s ego structure are disrupted and their foundations destroyed, making space for the individual to live in an expanded state of consciousness. The thesis proposes a model of spiritual development informed by and contrasted with depth psychological and transpersonal theories