Evolution and Consciousness, Revised Edition: From a Barren Rocky Earth to Artists, Philosophers, Meditators and Psychotherapists(31 Contemporary Psychoanalytic Studies)

This volume is a newly revised and updated edition of Evolution and Consciousness (Brill, 2019) and provides a comprehensive and accessible introduction to the emerging concept of the evolution of consciousness. The simple, but dynamic, theory of evolving consciousness blends the powerful insights of modern science with the deep wisdom of age-old cultures, synthesising the traditions of East and West, of the head and heart, of male and female and of science and spirituality. To borrow a phrase from American philosopher Ken Wilber, it is a concept that “transcends and includes” all that has gone before. By integrating diverse multi-disciplinary approaches, it provides an overarching and transcending model that moves us to a new level of meaning and understanding of our place in the world, and in so doing deepens our work as psychotherapists.

Table of Contents:
Foreword Preface to the Revised Edition Acknowledgements Notes on Authors Summary Introduction:The Evolution of Consciousness: A New Perspective on Our Search for Meaning  1 Models of the Evolution of Consciousness  2 The Goal of the Journey  3 Evolution and Consciousness: An Incredible Journey 1 The Evolution of Matter and Mind  1 Introduction  2 Methods of Inquiry: The Search for Meaning  3 Evolutionary Psychopathology  4 Consciousness and Learning  5 Ultimate Causes  6 Is Evolution Really Blind?  7 The Evolution of Matter  8 The Emergence of Life on Earth  9 The Anthropic Principle  10 The Evolution of Proteins and of Higher Forms of Life  11 Quantum Biology  12 From Rocks to Musicians, Engineers and Philosophers:The Problem of Entropy  13 The Primacy of Mind over Matter?  14 From Matter to Culture: A Co-operative Journey?  15 The Animal Mind - Ethology  16 The Missing Ingredient: Evolving Mind?  17 Are There Limits to Darwinian Theory?  18 Wallace’s Perspective: Teleological Considerations  19 Evolutionary Patterns  20 Circular Causality: A Systemic Approach  21 Panpsychism: A Systemic Approach  22 The Mind/Brain Issue: A Systemic Approach  23 Genetic Expression: A Systemic View  24 Evolution: A Systemic Approach  25 Relevance to Psychotherapy  26 Conclusions 2 Awareness: Constructivist, Psychodynamic and Eastern Perspectives  1 Introduction  2 Language and Awareness  3 The Continuum of Experience  4 The Experience of Meditation  5 Maps and Territory: Kelly and Piaget  6 Levels of Awareness: Kelly and Freud  7 Reality: Kelly and Lacan  8 Group Construing  9 The Unconscious  10 Pre-verbal and Somatic Construing  11 Suspension  12 Constriction and Dilation  13 Submergence  14 Loosening and Tightening  15 Constructivism, Buddhism and Duality  16 The Healing Essence of Buddhism  17 Transcendence, Ascendance and Descendance  18 Somatoform Disorders  19 Catharsis, Insight and Integration  20 Non-dual States  21 Critique and Conclusions 3 Consciousness and Mindfulness  1 Summary  2 Introduction  3 Suffering  4 The Talking Cure  5 The Inner Observer  6 The Role of Meditation  7 Mindfulness and Dis-Identification  8 Awareness Training  9 Attention, Awareness and Self-Regulation  10 Somatisation versus Symbolisation  11 Attachments  12 Attachment and Loss  13 Defensive Detachment  14 Adaptive Dis-Identification  15 Non-Attachment Techniques of the Orient  16 More Advanced Mindfulness Meditation Practice  17 The Silence of Meditation  18 Mindfulness in Psychodynamic Psychotherapy  19 Psychoanalysis as Mindfulness  20 Gestalt Therapy Perspective  21 Abreaction, Insight and Integration  22 Potential Problems with Detachment and Dis-Identification  23 Pathological Regression  24 Suitability  25 Conclusions 4 The Development of Symbolisation from the Pre-verbal to the Trans-verbal: An Evolving Consciousness  1 Introduction  2 Individual Development of Symbolisation  3 Symbolisation and Communication  4 Levels of Symbolic Development  5 Pre-verbal Symbolisation: An Evolutionary Perspective  6 Projective Identification  7 Hysterical Identification  8 Co-ontogeny, Identification and Transference  9 Failures of Symbolisation: Somatisation  10 Transitional Objects  11 Symbolic “Castration”  12 Sublimation  13 Dreaming and Verbal Symbolisation  14 Lacan and the Symbolic Order  15 Society and Verbal Symbolisation  16 Para-verbal Symbolisation  17 Trans-verbal Symbolisation  18 Summary and Conclusions Conclusion Bibliography Index Endorsement

About the Author :
Michael (Michelo) DelMonte, Ph.D. (1982), Trinity College Dublin. Michael was Principal Clinical Psychologist at St. Patrick’s University Hospital, Dublin. He is Adjunct Associate Professor in the Department of Psychiatry, Trinity College. He co-founded “The Transnational Network for Physical, Psychological and Spiritual Well-Being” (1990) in Tokyo. Maeve Halpin is a Chartered Counselling Psychologist (PSI), clinical supervisor and founder-manager of the Appletree Health and Wellness Therapy Centre in Dublin. She is a co-founder of the Theravadan Irish Sangha Trust (IST, 2011). She compiled and published How to be Happy and Healthy: the Seven Natural Elements of Mental Health in 2014.

Review :
"This book is absolutely breathtaking in the extent of its exploration of concepts and theories, ranging from the Western psychotherapies to Eastern traditions of mindfulness and meditative practice. But even more amazing and exciting is that it weaves interconnections with a range of other disciplines, including physics, cosmology, genetics, neuroscience and philosophy. In so doing, it questions much of currently accepted wisdom. These ideas are presented clearly and coherently, accessible to the general reader as well as to clinicians, therapists and scientists." - Ray Fuller, PhD, Professor of Psychology and Fellow Emeritus, Trinity College Dublin, Author of Life of Brain and Six Confessions of the Self-serving Brain (2021).