VDM Bray Peter: Hamlet's Crisis of Consciousness

This ground-breaking book extends and critiques Stanislav Grof's work on psycho-spiritual transformation by considering whether adolescents can experience 'spiritual emergency'. Grof contends that the human psyche, stimulated by new material originating from loss experiences will spontaneously reorganise itself. This process either unfolds gently as spiritual emergence or overwhelms the individual as a spiritual emergency. By examining the deeply introspective soliloquies of Shakespeare's Hamlet through the lens of Grof's extended cartography of the psyche the author reveals extraordinarily vivid and powerful dimensions of adolescent loss experience. This challenging work identifies significant connections between the notion of positive personal transformation, the work of grief and loss theorists, and a number of developmental, educational, philosophical, psychological and spiritual positions. It argues for the acknowledgment and identification of this potentially difficult and discomforting experience and recommends that further research be undertaken to understand the significant link between stressful life events and crises of consciousness in young people.